This week’s Saturday-special-I’m-actually-posting-on-Monday is the first chapter of the YA science fiction novel (dystopian before dystopian YA SF was cool!) I just epublished last week:

If you like this sample, you can order the complete book through Smashwords or buy it in the Kindle store. (It should soon show up in other premium ebook stores.)

Enjoy!

***

The Chosen

By Edward Willett

Chapter One

Beth Foster held tight to her father’s waist, her right ear pressed against his back, as the white stallion galloped across the prairie. Out of the corner of her eye she caught occasional glimpses of the dozen mounted men following close behind. The pounding of all those horses’ hooves and the pounding of her own heart mingled in her head until she couldn’t tell one from the other.

Suddenly the stallion slowed, and at the same instant, Beth smelled the sharp scent of burning pine. She raised her head, sniffing the autumn wind like a hunting dog, as her father lifted his right hand and the other riders reined to a halt around them, horses blowing and stamping, breath and sweat steaming in the frosty air. The wind tossed a strand of red-gold hair across her eyes, and impatiently she tucked it back under her warm red cap of knitted wool.

Her father surveyed the troop of horsemen, and Beth followed his gaze. Each man wore a white surcoat, emblazoned front and back with the red cross of the Crusade, dimmed by the dust of their ride; a saber hung from each belt and a holstered rifle was slung from each saddle.

Beth’s father nodded, then said, “Torches.”

From their saddlebags, each rider pulled out a short wooden torch, greasy rags wrapped around one end. After a few moments’ work with flint and steel, the rags began to burn. One by one the riders lifted the flames in salute to Beth’s father. He raised his clenched right fist in response. “Hold on,” he said in a low voice to Beth, then, “To the glory of God!” he shouted, and slammed his heels into the stallion’s flanks.

Beth’s heart leaped as they surged up the slope, but instead of plunging down the far side of the hill, her father reined to halt at its crest. In the valley below Beth could see a farmyard, with a pre-Trouble white frame house and a few outbuildings surrounded by a much more crudely made wooden stockade about eight feet high. “Aren’t we going down?” Beth shouted as the other riders pounded past them, but her father shook his head.

“It’s too dangerous for you,” he shouted back. “Just watch. Watch how the Chosen purge the land of evil!”

Beth watched.

An old man picking corn looked up as the riders thundered down toward him, froze for a moment, then dropped his half-full basket and ran for the open gate, shapeless brown hat flying from his balding head. “Joey! Marta! Close the gate! Close the—”

The broad chest of the lead black gelding struck him in the back and he fell, rolling over and over among the dry yellow stalks.

A woman appeared in the doorway of the house, and screamed as the Chosen pounded through the gate. Three crying children, the oldest no more than eight, ran to her. One by one the horsemen flung their torches through the door of a shed from which stretched two strands of black wire, strung on tall wooden posts.

A dull thump shook the ground, and orange flames engulfed the shed and licked at the wall of the house as the Chosen swept out of the compound and rode back up the hill, past the motionless body of the old man.

“Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!” Beth’s father shouted to his men as they rejoined him at the top of the hill, but Beth’s eyes were locked on the woman. She herded her coughing, weeping children away from their burning home, then saw the old man lying in the field and ran toward him.

“Dad!” Beth heard her scream. “Dad!” Beth’s last view, as her own father wheeled the stallion to lead his band home in victory, was of the woman kneeling in the broken corn beside the old man, sobbing.

Beth thought she might be sick. “It was God’s will,” she whispered to herself. “God’s will—God’s will!” Hadn’t her father said so that very morning? He had stood in his stirrups, silver hair and beard astir in the breeze, his voice booming through the Square. “The army of the Lord rides forth to rid the land of evil and prepare the Earth for the coming of its King!”

They had a generator, Beth told herself fiercely. It had to be destroyed!

“Electricity is the lifeblood of Satan!” her father had shouted out across the Square. “From it sprang all the evils of the Old World before the Tribulation!”

But she kept seeing the old man rolling in the dust, the fire licking at the house, the terrified faces of the children, and in her ears still rang the cries of the woman who had seen the little bit of security she had carved from a hard, uncaring world destroyed in an instant.

We saved them from the Evil One. We saved them!

Would Mama have thought so?, another inner voice whispered in reply.

All the way home, Beth listened to the excited voices of the horsemen, rehashing their glorious attack. She didn’t say a word, and when the tree-filled valley that sheltered their village opened below them, Beth suddenly felt she could not face the cheering crowd that would welcome them. “Father, may I get down?”

“What?” He looked back at her. “Why?”

“I’d like to walk from here, that’s all.” She didn’t meet his eyes.

He hesitated, then pulled on the reins. The other riders halted a little further on and waited as he helped Beth to the ground. “Don’t be long,” he said. “There’ll be a celebration feast tonight, and I want you looking your best.”

“Yes, Father.”

He pulled off her cap, leaned down and kissed the top of her head, then handed her back the cap and urged the stallion to a trot. A moment later the entire troop disappeared into the valley.

Beth looked back the way they had come. Was that distant smudge the smoke from the destroyed farm? She stared at it a moment, then shivered and plunged down into the valley herself, to escape the wind that suddenly felt much colder. Winter’s coming, she thought. That recalcitrant strand of hair had escaped again; she tucked it up under her cap once more, then pulled her patched brown homespun riding cloak closer around her shoulders. Maybe this will be the last raid for a while.

But an icy gust rattled the yellow leaves of the birches and aspen like scornful laughter, and she shivered. She knew better. As surely as the snow would come, the raids would continue. “God’s will does not wait for good weather,” her father said, and she knew his scouts were scouring ever further afield for any sign of the Old Ways.

She reached the trail at the base of the slope and walked slowly toward the village, wishing that when she got there she would have someone to talk to, someone who could help her sort out her feelings.

But there was no one. No one questioned her father. He had risen to oversight of the Chosen through the combined force of his intellect and personality; no one had ever withstood him in debate, no one, it seemed, failed to be mesmerized by his fiery oratory. When Elder Silas had dropped dead of a heart attack ten years ago, Elder Joshua Foster had been the unanimous choice as his successor—and had not been challenged since.

If only Mama were still alive. But that was foolishness, like wishing the Tribulation had never happened. If her mother had not died a year ago in the outbreak of Blue Plague that took more than twenty of the Chosen in all, her father might never have begun his Crusade; but die she had, drowned in the fluid that filled her lungs as surely as if she had sunk to the bottom of Lake Katepwa. Beth’s father had taken his wife’s death as a sign. She could still hear him thundering to the Chosen on the Sunday morning that had launched the Crusade. “Evil remains in the land!” he had shouted, voice hoarse with emotion, face tight with pain. “God sent the Tribulation to purge us of evil, but He has let some remain to test our faith. It is our duty, as the sons and daughters of God, to finish God’s great work—before God repents of our survival and destroys us all!”

Beth could also hear her mother’s voice, saying “God is love.” But love seemed to have little place in her father’s new creed…

And then Beth’s heart skipped a beat and she suddenly forgot her doubts as she heard men’s voices—voices she didn’t recognize.

She darted off the path into the woods. Anyone not of the Chosen was to be feared; that was one warning of her father’s she believed fervently. She knew what had happened to others of the Chosen who had come upon some of those who wandered the Wild…

Yet despite her fear, she had a duty to her neighbors. As silently as she could, she crept toward the strangers. There were two, she decided as their voices became clearer; two men, just off the trail, hidden by a stand of bushes. They spoke English, but with such a strong, drawling accent she had to get closer than she liked to understand them.

“Ain’t seen nothing bigger’n a sparrow since day before yesterday,” one whined. “Where’s them deer that old man promised?”

“We’ll find them down here,” said the other in a deeper tone. “He must have known what he was talking about. You saw all those hides.”

“So why should he tell us where he got them?”

“I paid him, didn’t I? I gave him that flashlight thing. That should be worth a deer.”

“Yeah, and who said you could do that? That was mine, that was. Why’nt you give him them silver gloves you lifted?”

“Because I need gloves worse’n you need a flashlight. Anyway, you’ve got those binoculars and the best rifle. And we’ve each got a couple of those—what’d the Technos call ’em?—solar batteries, that’s it. They ought to be worth a winter’s lodging just about anywhere, if they put out as much ’lectricity as they said.”

Beth swallowed and nervously shifted position, and a twig under her foot snapped like a rifle shot. “Someone’s watching us!” the whiney man cried.

Beth burst from cover like a startled rabbit. A branch snagged her cloak, but she twisted free and raced for the village, ignoring the shouts behind her and praying she could outrun the men if they pursued her.

The chill air stung her face and her arms grew cold without her cloak, but she hardly noticed. Electricity! Flashlights! Satan’s work, brought into the Chosen’s valley!

Half a mile later she staggered through the open gate of the village’s palisade and fell to her knees on the flagstones of the Square, gasping, heart pounding, unable to speak.

The Square was crowded with people and horses, as the men who had been on the raid mingled with those who had come out to greet them on their return. John Ramsey, the village butcher, and one of that morning’s raiders, was the first to notice Beth. “Here, now, Beth, what’re you in such a state over?” he said, helping her to her feet as a crowd gathered. She tried to speak, but a stitch in her side doubled her over again and for a moment she thought she would throw up. It seemed to take her forever to summon the breath to blurt out what she had heard.

Shouts of anger greeted her news. Leaving her in the care of Sarah Goodman, a grandmotherly woman Beth knew mainly as the village’s biggest gossip, Ramsey called for men and horses and sent his eight-year-old son, Amos, running toward the big house overlooking the courtyard to summon Beth’s father.

Mrs. Goodman settled Beth on the wooden bench ringing the well, then drew up the bucket and offered her a ladle of water. Beth gulped the icy liquid gratefully, but then almost dropped the ladle in a fit of shivering. Mrs. Goodman’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, dear, I never thought…here.” She pulled off her green wool cloak and wrapped it around Beth’s trembling shoulders. “What you need is something warm. Come inside and I’ll fix you some mint tea.”

Teeth chattering, Beth followed Mrs. Goodman across the Square, but paused as her father strode from their house, still wearing the dust-grimed uniform he had worn on the raid and buckling his sword-belt around his giant, gaunt frame as he walked. His ice-blue eyes glittered in the waning sun, and the cold wind ruffled his white hair and beard. He looked magnificent and frightening, and as Beth watched him mount his stallion once again, she almost pitied the two strangers.

They brought Satan’s handiwork into our valley, she reminded herself. And Father won’t harm them if they don’t resist…

But what if they do?

“Come along, dear,” Mrs. Goodman said, and Beth gratefully turned away from the forming posse and hurried after her.

Mrs. Goodman’s hot mint tea, poured out in a cozy kitchen warmed by a potbellied stove, soon warmed Beth’s body, but did nothing to ease the chill in her heart, and she excused herself as soon as she could, leaving Mrs. Goodman’s myriad questions about what had happened in the woods and on the raid that morning unanswered.

Half an hour later, she watched from the door of her own house as her father and the half-dozen men who had ridden with him returned to the crowd awaiting them in the Square, bringing with them two strangers, bound together astride a barebacked pack horse.

The posse halted, and her father dismounted. He pulled his saddlebags free, lifted one flap, and upended them. Bits of metal and glass scattered across the stones of the Square, glittering in the sun like diamonds.

Joshua Foster drove his boot down onto one of the largest pieces of glass, grinding it to dust against the rock. “Thus do we treat all the works of Satan!” he shouted. The Chosen cheered.

Then he saw Beth and motioned her to him. She reluctantly obeyed, holding her arms tight to her body against the deepening chill. From the other side of his saddlebags he pulled out her old brown cloak; as she took it, he bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m proud of you, Beth,” he whispered, then stood and shouted, “Let my daughter’s devotion be an example to us all! It was she who discovered these pawns of Satan and exerted all her strength to warn us!” He motioned to John Ramsey, whose horse was leading the packhorse bearing the prisoners; Ramsey slipped out of his saddle, then jerked the two strangers to the ground so roughly they almost fell.

One was a tall, stout man, his black hair and scraggly beard salted with gray, his face brown and deeply lined. The other, thinner and younger, had dirty blonde hair and a straggly mustache. Both looked around sullenly, and for a moment the older man’s eyes met Beth’s.

She read anger and disgust there, and suddenly all she wanted to do was escape. “May I go now, Father?” she said, looking down at her hands, twisting the rough wool of her cloak.

“Of course,” he murmured. “You should rest before the feast.” He lifted her chin and smiled at her. “You’re a hero, you know.” Then he released her and turned toward the crowd as she walked quickly toward their house. “These strangers will be questioned,” his voice boomed out again. “They may yet redeem themselves by telling us where they found these tools of the Devil. And tonight at the feast, perhaps, we will be able to celebrate not only a great day in our Crusade, but the hope of more great days to come…”

The front door banged shut and cut off his voice. In the dim hallway just beyond Beth pressed her cheek against the smooth, dark wood paneling and closed her eyes.

“You’re a hero,” her father had told her. A hero—to the Chosen.

But not to herself.

Buy it on Smashwords!

I was an early adopter when it came to ebooks in more ways than one. I owned a very early dedicated ebook reader, the HieBook, and read a ton of stuff on it. But I was also an early adopter as a writer, publishing my YA fantasy novel Spirit Singer with Awe-Struck Publishing (now owned by Mundania Press LLC) 10 years ago…you know, clever me, before ebooks really took off. As an experiment, it wasn’t entirely a bust, by any means. Spirit Singer won a couple of epublishing awards (the 2002 Dream Realm Award for excellence in epublished young adult science fiction, fantasy and horror and the 2002 EPPIE Award for best electronically published young adult fiction), and more importantly from a monetary point of view, the Regina Book Award for best book by a Regina author, at the 2002 Saskatchewan Book Awards. That award came with $1,500…which is a good thing, because I wouldn’t have made any money off of it otherwise. Those $1.50 royalty cheques just don’t add up very fast. (Technically it wasn’t the ebook version that won the Regina Book Award; it was a print-on-demand paperback, since only printed books are eligible. It may have been the first POD title ever entered.)

Fast forward to the present. Ebooks are finally taking off, and more and more authors are releasing titles as ebook originals (and more and more publishers, like my own, DAW Books, are releasing their books in both print and ebook formats.) And so…I’m experimenting with ebooks again.

I currently have four available through Smashwords and on Kindle.

First, there’s Spirit Singer, reborn as a modern ebook,  though it began life in the age when ebooks were sometimes sold on floppy disks. (No, it’s true! You can look it up!). Second, there’s my duology about far-future street musician Kit Murdoch, better known as Andy Nebula. When Roussan Publishers went under, freeing up all rights to my printed YA SF novel Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star, I turned it into an ebook. The sequel, Andy Nebula: Double Trouble was written and ready to go when Roussan failed, and so it had languished until it, too, could be made into an ebook–which it has been.

And then there’s The Chosen. This was a very early novel of mine–in fact, it might have been only the second I wrote as an adult–that came very close to being published by a Saskatchewan publishing house maybe 25 years ago. That never happened, and I was unable to find another home for the book (although I did use it as the basis for the material I worked on in a screenwriting class I took–any movie producers interested, I have a treatment!). Just a few years ago I polished it up a bit (it got a bit longer in the process), and now, at last, it sees the light of day as an ebook. As I like to say, it was dystopian SF before dystopian SF was cool!

Details follow, with links to the books on Smashwords and Amazon. Go forth and read! It would warm the cockles of my heart, and you want me to have warm heart-cockles, don’t you?

Spirit Singer

The Chosen

It’s late in the 21st century, and after economic collapse and a “small” war, civilization is in pretty bad shape. On the Canadian prairies, a religious cult, the Chosen, has dedicated itself to destroying all vestiges of the old technological civilization–but only a few hundred kilometres away, the Technos are just as dedicated to rebuilding it. The two cultures are on a collision course that could mean the first war of the new era, and mutual destruction, unless the teenage daughter of the cult’s leader and a boy from the Technos can overcome their own personal differences and prevent it…no matter what the cost.

Buy through Smashwords

Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star

Kit is a tough streetkid from a backwater planet, living hand-to-mouth as a musician. Then he meets Rain, a tentacled alien, and Qualls, a talent scout. Overnight, Kit becomes Andy Nebula, interstellar rock sensation. But as his star starts to fade, Kit and his young fan Meta find themselves caught up in something far less glamorous–and more deadly!–than the galactic music industry.

Buy through Smashwords

Andy Nebula: Double Trouble

Kit is no longer Andy Nebula, interstellar rock star. Reduced to playing dingy dives, he agrees to reprise Andy Nebula for a one-time benefit concert…only to discover that someone else is passing himself off as Andy Nebula instead. Soon Kit, Meta and Rain, the alien cop, find themselves caught up in an interstellar assassination plot that endangers not only their lives, but galactic peace.

Buy through Smashwords

For this week’s Saturday special, the introduction (complete with footnotes!) to Jimi Hendrix: Kiss the Sky. Which you can purchase here, if you’re interested!

**

Jimi Hendrix: Kiss the Sky

By Edward Willett

Introduction

Shortly after 9 a.m. on Saturday, September 24, 1966, a young black man stepped off a Pan American Airlines airplane at London’s Heathrow Airport. All he had with him was $40 in borrowed cash, a small bag containing a change of clothes, pink plastic hair curlers and a jar of Valderma face cream…and his guitar.[i]

But a guitar was all he really needed. Within an extraordinarily short time, that young man would be famous around the world. Decades later, he’s still famous: “King Jimi,” a “guitar god,” the “master of electric-guitar sound and style.”[ii]

Later that same evening, Jimi Hendrix was onstage at The Scotch of St. James, a club that attracted people in the music industry. As he started to play, the club fell silent.

“He was just amazing,” Kathy Etchingham, then just twenty-four and soon to be Jimi’s girlfriend (one of many), recalled. “People had never seen anything like it.”[iii]

Among the musicians in the crowd was Eric Burdon of the Animals. His take: “It was haunting how good he was. You just stopped and watched.”[iv]

Burdon was the first famous guitarist to be awed by Hendrix’s ability. He wouldn’t be the last. On January 11, 1967, Hendrix and his new band, The Experience, played at a basement club called the Bag O’Nails in the Soho district of London.

Hendrix had been in England just three and a half months (and had spent several weeks touring France and Germany with the Experience), but that night his show was attended by rock greats Pete Townshend and John Entwhistle of the Who, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr of the Beatles (plus their manager, Brian Epstein), Mick Jagger and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck…and many others.[v]

People all over the world stopped and watched when Jimi Hendrix played…but it all ended on September 18, 1970, when he died in London at the age of twenty-seven.

Jimi Hendrix crammed a lot into his short life. The consummate rebel, he somehow fought his way past every barrier that rose between him and his lifelong dream of stardom. He rebelled against his father, who thought his music was a waste of time. He rebelled against the strict regimentation of the bands in which he played as a back-up guitarist. He rebelled against the expectation that he would limit himself to playing for black audiences. He rebelled against conventional notions of how the electric guitar should be played. He rebelled against conventional ideas of sexual morality. And, tragically and fatally, he rebelled against restrictions on his use of drugs.

Tony Palmer, a friend of Hendrix’s who today is a renowned director of music documentaries, wrote in The Observer newspaper on September 20, 1970, “Whatever Mozart and Tchaikovsky have come to mean to lovers of classical music, Hendrix meant the same if not more to a whole generation.”[vi] He added, “Jimi Hendrix was born Jimi Hendrix. Great musicians are not created; they are born. Jimi was meant for music.”[vii]

Looking back, it seems as if Jimi Hendrix was always meant to be a star. Certainly he always thought so. But for most of his life, stardom seemed a very long way away…

*

It’s of roughly the same era as “Janitor Work,” which I posted here a few weeks ago.

The other interesting thing about “The Minstrel”: it was the basis for my first post-university novel, a book that never sold…but that came agonizingly close, as I found out at the World Science Fiction Convention in Winnipeg in 1994. Josepha Sherman was editing science fiction at Walker & Co. in the late 1980s early 1990s (I don’t remember the precise dates) and I’d sent the novel version of this story to her. She liked it, but said it needed quite a bit of additional work…which I did, adding several chapters, in fact. I sent it back, but again it was turned down.

What I found out in Winnipeg, as she recounted the tale while on a panel, was that she’d been “ready to make an offer”…but then the publisher died and his replacement decreed that Walker would no longer publish science fiction. And so my novel-writing career remained stalled for many more years.

Such is life, and writing. But I’ve got plans to go over Star Song (as I eventually titled the novel) and release it myself as an ebook. So I may yet have the last laugh!

For now, enjoy “The Minstrel.”

###

The Minstrel

By Edward Willett

The music sang of the infinite Dark and the suns that burn within it. It shimmered like starlight on alien seas, and whispered with the voices of strange winds.

#

Kriss stopped playing, and as the last chord died slowly away, sat quietly with his head bowed, cradling his touchlyre in his arms. The orange glow of the oil lamps gleamed on the instrument’s polished black wood and burnished copper.

One by one those in the smoky bar, mostly offworlders, rose from their tables and came to the low platform where Kriss sat to drop coins into the wooden bowl at his feet. The murmur of their conversation was slow to resume.

When the last had come and gone Kriss stood, bowed, and left the stage. He divided the money with the innkeeper, then slipped the touchlyre into its soft leather case and went out into the chill night air.

In the cobblestoned street he stopped and looked up at the stars blazing in the night sky, as he did every evening when he finished playing, burning into his mind’s eye the goal for which he had striven, it seemed, forever.

Two local men staggered by. One poked the other with his elbow and nodded toward Kriss. “Uppity offworlder,” he whispered loudly. His companion made an obscene gesture at the boy, then, laughing, they weaved on down the street.

Kriss clenched his fists, then spun and strode in the opposite direction.

Where the cobblestones ended and concrete began, artificial lights banished the night. At the sight of them Kriss forgot the drunks’ insults and broke into a run. In a moment he reached the tall wire fence that surrounded the spaceport and pressed his face against the cold mesh, peering through it at the starships, silver spires that seemed to soar skyward even though standing still. The lights glittered on their mirrored sides.

There lay the path to the stars, away from this hated planet where he didn’t belong, couldn’t belong, though he had been raised on it. The drunks had known; they had seen his height and his blonde hair and had known he came from the stars.

Somewhere out there must be his true home; somewhere out there he had to have a family. His parents were dead, but they had to have had parents of their own, brothers, sisters…

He blinked away tears, and, disgusted with his own self-pity, turned away from the fence and set out along a dark, garbage-strewn alley for his barren lodging, a tiny attic room above a seamstress’s shop. He was fooling himself if he thought he would ever leave Farr’s World, he thought bitterly. The spacecrews called him “worldhugger”; neither Union nor Family, and without contacts in either of those spacefaring groups, he could never gain a berth as a crewmember, and he could entertain in spaceport bars for the rest of his life without raising enough money to buy passage into orbit, much less to another world.

Lost in dark thoughts, he didn’t realize he was being followed until a hand touched his shoulder.

He instinctively spun away from that touch and pressed his back against a rough stone wall, his heart pounding, his arms wrapped protectively around the touchlyre.

“I mean you no harm,” said the man who faced him. Shadows hid his features. “I only want to talk.”

Kriss did not relax. “Then talk.”

“What is your name?”

Kriss said nothing.

“Perhaps if you knew mine…? I am Carl Vorlick, a dealer in alien curiosities.” He waited.

“My name’s Kriss Lemarc,” Kriss said finally. “Why?”

Vorlick ignored the question. “And how old are you?”

“Fifteen, standard.”

“That would be just about right.” Vorlick’s eyes glinted faintly in the starlight. “I heard you play in Andru’s—remarkable. Almost as though you projected emotion, not just sound.”

Pleased despite himself, Kriss shrugged. “My instrument is…special.”

“Indeed it is. And very beautiful. May I…?” He held out his hand.

Kriss looked up and down the alley, but saw no hope of rescue. Slowly he unfolded the leather covering and took out the touchlyre. The copper fingerplates and strings shone even in that dark corner.

Vorlick took a handlight from his pocket and played the beam over the instrument. Kriss caught a quick glimpse of a lean face with thin lips and ice-blue eyes before the light switched off. “Lovely,” the man murmured. “How does it work?”

Kriss hesitated. “I hear music in my mind, and the touchlyre plays it,” he said finally. “I can’t explain any better than that.”

“Touchlyre?”

“That’s what I call it. I don’t know what its real name is.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It belonged to my parents. But I don’t even remember them.”

“Your parents, yes.” Vorlick paused for a long moment, then said, “You desire to leave this world, don’t you?”

Kriss said nothing. This stranger knew too much. Once again he glanced up and down the alley. He would have welcomed even the two drunks who had insulted him earlier—but there was no one.

But Vorlick took his silence as consent. “I own a ship.”

Kriss stiffened. “What do you want from me?” he demanded; but inside he already knew.

“The price is small: your instrument. Give the touchlyre to me, and I will take you into space.”

Kriss looked down at the touchlyre. “It’s that valuable?”

“To the right person, everything is valuable. Your music spoke of your longing for the stars—some of those hardened spacefarers in Andru’s were near tears. You value the stars, I value your instrument. A fair exchange.”

“A musician once told me there isn’t another instrument like this one in the galaxy.”

“But there are other instruments. You could choose from those of a thousand worlds. Surely one construction of wood and metal is not so different from another?”

To go to the stars, Kriss thought. To cross the great Dark, to breathe the air of alien worlds, to perhaps touch Mother Earth herself…

…to find a family…

Almost unconsciously, his arms loosened from the touchlyre. He looked up again at the stars, drank in their light with his eyes—and made up his mind. “Agreed.”

Vorlick rubbed his hands together. “Excellent! Come to the spaceport gate at dawn. Bring the instrument.” He turned and vanished into the darkness.

Kriss listened to his footsteps fade, then turned and walked slowly on toward his room. He climbed the familiar, rickety wooden stairs on the outside of the old brick building, past the dingy window through which shone a faint yellow light from the seamstress’s lantern, unlocked his door and went in. Lighting his single candle, he looked around the tiny chamber. The ceiling with its small square skylight was simply the underside of the roof, and so low on one side he had to stoop to get to his bed, the only furniture aside from a rough-hewn table and rusty metal chair. I won’t miss this, he thought. I won’t miss anything on this planet.

But he didn’t feel euphoric, as he had always expected to feel when he finally found a way to fulfill his dream. Instead he felt—numb? No, not numb—depressed.

Why? he asked himself. I’m going to the stars—all my dreams are coming true!

But the feeling persisted. As always when his spirits needed lifting, Kriss took out the touchlyre. Playing it was cathartic; he could lose himself in music as so many others on this impoverished planet did in wine.

He held the instrument in his lap for a moment, running his fingers over the sinuous curves of its velvety, unvarnished wood. Then he raised it and placed his hands on the copper plates.

The strings screamed: discordant, angry, ear-shattering. Kriss snatched his hands away. The touchlyre had never made a sound like that before! Had he broken it? He touched the plates again, cautiously, and again the instrument howled.

Disgusted, he tossed it on the table. If it was broken, he was well rid of it. He’d find himself another instrument, from one of those thousand worlds of which Vorlick had spoken. He undressed, blew out the candle and crawled into bed.

Just before sleep claimed him, he thought he heard the instrument’s strings softly humming; but of course that was impossible, with no one touching the plates.

He dreamed. He was performing in Andru’s, as he had done so many times, playing of his longing for the stars. That longing filled him with almost physical pain, but pain he could bear as long as he kept playing.

But suddenly the touchlyre disappeared, and he stood on an alien planet, strange and beautiful. Then another new world surrounded him, and another, and another, flashing past faster and faster, but no matter how exotic, how wonderful, they did not satisfy his longing, and the ache grew ever more acute.

And then he came to a world where dwelt a man who, he somehow knew, was his father’s brother. His uncle rose to greet him, laughing, and hugged him, welcoming him to his family…

…but still the longing burned within Kriss, stronger than ever, so strong he suddenly knew it could never be quenched, and he broke away and screamed and screamed and—

—woke, gasping, bathed in sweat, his blanket a tangled heap on the floor and the scream echoing in his ears. His scream—or—he glanced sharply at the touchlyre, barely visible in the faint illumination from the skylight. It seemed to him he could hear the strings vibrating down to stillness, as though a mighty chord had just been wrung from them.

Nonsense, he told himself. He retrieved his blanket. No dreams troubled him the rest of the night.

In the morning he rose very early, put the touchlyre and the few clothes he owned into a backpack, and headed down the stairs and through a thin morning mist to the spaceport. The mountains towering above the city still hid the sun, but light filled the sky.

Vorlick waited at the spaceport gate. “Did you bring it?” he asked at once.

“Yes,” Kriss said, startled by the blunt question.

“Take it out. I want to see it in the daylight.”

Nonplused, Kriss did as he was told. But as he took the touchlyre from its case it hummed to life in his hands, and from it crashed a single explosive chord that echoed through the silent streets. Vorlick stumbled back as though slapped. “What—”

Kriss didn’t hear him. The chord had sent the whole dream of the night before flashing through his mind, and it suddenly made perfect sense to him. His longing wasn’t so much to see the stars, or even to find his family, but to find himself. He was doing that, bit by bit, through the touchlyre, journeying into his own soul to find out what kind of person he was, healing the wound made when he was orphaned on Farr’s World.

Without the touchlyre, he could never finish that healing process. Wandering around the stars with the touchlyre lost to him forever would only hurt him worse; and even if he found a family, he would have lost something just as important.

Kriss’s eyes suddenly focused on Vorlick. “No.”

“No?”

“I’ve changed my mind. I’ll keep the touchlyre. I’ll find my own way into space.” He started to turn away.

Vorlick reached into his pocket and pulled out something metallic and deadly looking. “Stand still,” he said, his voice as cold as space. “That’s not one of your options. You don’t even know what you have, but I do. It’s a working artifact from an ancient, alien civilization, uncovered by two archaeologists on a planet we may never find again. They fled here with it when they realized someone knew they had it and was out to get it.” He smiled humorlessly. “Me, of course. It was almost fifteen standard years ago. I tracked them here, only to find they had died in an aircar crash. I assumed the artifact was destroyed with them.

“But then, just a few months ago, a spy on this world told me of a strange instrument in the hands of a boy—an instrument unlike any other.

“I did some checking. I found that the archaeologists had an infant son shortly after they arrived here, who was not in the aircar when it crashed—a baby who has become a young man—the minstrel with the unique instrument.

“So now, Kriss Lemarc, though I must withdraw my offer of placing you in a ship’s crew, I give you your parents: Jon and Memory Lemarc, archaeologists. And I also give you knowledge of what your ‘touchlyre’ is: the only relic of an ancient alien culture, and worth a fortune you cannot imagine.

“In exchange for that information, you will now give me this instrument.” Vorlick put his hand on it. “Or I will kill you.”

Kriss tore the touchlyre away from him. “No!”

And from the strings that cry of defiance exploded again, with a force that surpassed sound. Kriss, paralyzed, felt all his violent emotions, fear, awe, defiance, hatred, pouring through his hands into the touchlyre, adding to the force it hurled at Vorlick like a weapon. The power coursed through Kriss like a cleansing tide—and he knew he couldn’t stop it if he wanted to.

Vorlick’s face paled and slackened and his eyes glazed, then closed. The gun dropped from his nerveless hand as his legs buckled, and he fell to his knees and then to the ground.

Finally it ended. Kriss felt, not empty of emotion, but as if he now had room to truly experience and understand his emotions for the first time, as though a gritty residue clogging his mind had been washed away.

He looked down at Vorlick and pitied him. The man lay unconscious, and Kriss knew he had nothing more to fear from him.

Then he raised the touchlyre, silent again, and held it at arm’s length, studying it in the first rays of the sun, streaming through a cleft in the mountains behind him like searchlights. The orange beams made the wood and copper glow, reflecting the power hidden inside the ancient artifact. Just what that power was, and where it came from, he might never know: but he knew it was on his side.

He let his gaze travel to the tall starships beyond the gate, stark against the brightening sky. Above the tallest a single star still outshone the dawn light.

Someday, Kriss thought. Someday I’ll make that journey.

That dream was still his: but now he knew the real journey lay within him. He turned his back on the spaceport and walked back to his attic room.

#

In a bar called Andru’s, near the only spaceport of an obscure planet, starship crewmembers come to sit quietly and listen to a boy play a strange instrument of space-black wood and burnished copper.

His music sings of the infinite Dark and the suns that burn within it. It shimmers like starlight on alien seas, and whispers with the voices of strange winds.

The photo of the lunar surface is from Apollo 17.

Darryl Norton looked glumly at the dust-covered object before him.  It seemed to him he had seen an inordinate number of dust-covered objects in his short life.

Yet he had been very pleased when his father had given him this job in the Lunar Survey and Exploration Corps.  Although Apollo City offered many kinds of entertainment, it was still a very small community, isolated by the void of space and the desolate lunar surface.  The Corps had seemed like the place to find some adventure.

Some adventure, Darryl thought.  He reached for the vacuum nozzle.  It was his job to clean dust from equipment that had been used on the surface, like this seismic charge.

Of course, it hadn’t actually been used.  Someone had just set it on the surface and brought it back.  But any equipment like that had to be cleaned—by Darryl.

At least it was the last item.  Darryl finished going over it once and was starting to pry into some of the harder-to-reach places when his wristwatch alarm went off.  He looked at it, startled.  1800 already?  In just thirty minutes the Apollo City spinball team would be playing the L-5s for the off-Earth championship.

He quickly examined the charge.  Any dust left on it wasn’t visible; no one would notice.  He grabbed it and spun away from the table.

As he turned, the charge slipped out of his hand.  He had given it enough momentum to send it crashing hard against the metal floor, but when he picked it up, he could see no damage.  He placed it with the rest of the clean equipment, logged “work completed” into the computer and left, whistling.

The next day Darryl’s father, Philip Norton, surprised him by taking him to the crawler bay, where he and a geologist, Andy Davis, were getting ready for a two-day trip to set out seismographic equipment.  Then his father surprised him even more by telling him he was going to be the third crewmember.

As Darryl climbed in through the crawler’s airlock he hoped he was done with janitor work for good.

A few hours later he stood at the bottom of a deep crater.  The crawler, his father and Davis were all out of sight beyond the crater wall.  Darryl had finished setting up his segment of the instrument package, and was simply enjoying the solitude, solitude as complete as though he were alone on an alien planet in another solar system.  The voices crackling in his helmet, after all, could be coming from the orbiting starship, where the captain awaited his report…

Abruptly the voices ceased.  A cloud of dust spurted over the crater wall and rapidly settled.  Frightened, Darryl scrambled out of the crater—and froze when he saw the crawler.

Something had torn a gaping hole in its side.

“Dad!” Darryl screamed, and ran toward the vehicle, awkward in his suit.  If the hole was in the crew room, everyone inside without a suit was dead—and he could see no one outside.  He called his father again, but only static answered.

He reached the crawler, slipping and falling as he tried to stop.  He got clumsily to his feet and hammered the airlock control with his fist.  Nothing happened.

He grabbed the wheel to open the lock manually and turned it.  The door slid slowly open, and he scrambled through, closed the door behind him, and opened the valve that would fill the lock with air from inside the crawler—if any air remained.

With relief he felt a blast of wind against his glove, and the moment the pressures had equalized he swung open the inside door and burst throught.

Smoke from shorting electrical equipment filled the room.  A shattered suit life-support pack lay against one wall.  Davis crouched on the floor, bent over…

“Dad!”  Darryl tore off his helmet and crashed to his knees beside his father.

“I’ll take care of him,” Davis snapped.  “You get a fire extinguisher and put out those electrical fires.”

“But—”

“Move!”

Heartsick, Darryl did as he was told.  As soon as possible he was back.  “How is he?”

“Not good.”  Davis injected something into the injured man.  “He was recharging that life support pack when the explosion happened.  All the electrical systems shorted out, and the suit’s oxygen tank blew up.  He took a heavy shock and he’s cut up, too.”  He looked up at Darryl.  “I won’t lie to you, kid…if he doesn’t get help, he’ll die.”

“But what happened?”

“A seismic charge must have exploded in storage and ruptured one of the big, high-pressure oxygen tanks.  That blew out the side of the crawler and took the electrical systems with it.  But there’s no reason a charge should just…What’s the matter?”

Darryl had gone white, and he felt sick.  He could imagine only too well what might have set off a seismic charge prematurely—if the outer casing was cracked, and dust got into the mechanism.

Davis helped him to a chair.  “Are you hurt, too?”

Darryl looked up at him with eyes that didn’t see.  “I caused the explosion,” he whispered.

“What?”

“I caused it!” Darryl cried.  “I was cleaning a seismic charge yesterday—I was in a hurry—it slipped and hit the floor—and I didn’t report it, or even check it closely.  It must have been damaged.”

Davis, who had been bent over him in concern, straightened.  “You little fool!” he exploded.  Darryl cringed, certain the geologist would strike him.  He didn’t, quite.  “I should toss you out the airlock.  But I guess there’s no point, is there?  You’ve killed yourself as well as your father and me!”

“Can’t you radio for help?” Darryl said faintly.

“The radio’s ruined.  And since we just made our daily report, we won’t even be missed for 24 hours.  Your father won’t last that long, and neither will we.  We have exactly 15 hours before the emergency life support gives out.” ¯Davis turned away from Darryl and slumped in another chair, his eyes closed.

Only 15 hours… “There must be something we can do,” Darryl said desperately.  Then he saw his helmet where he had dropped it.  He got to his feet.

Davis opened his eyes.  “What are you doing?” he demanded sharply.

Darryl fastened his suit and picked up the helmet.  “I’m walking back to Apollo for help.”

“You’re crazy.  We’re four hours out by crawler; that’s close to twelve, walking.”

“My life support pack is less than an hour used and we’ve got one full one.  Each one is good for six hours.”

“That’s not enough.”

“That’s just enough.”

Davis jumped up and grabbed the helmet.  “I won’t let you!  You’ll just be killing yourself!”

With more strength than he knew he possessed, Darryl tore the helmet away.  “I caused the explosion,” he said grimly.  “I’m responsible for Dad being hurt.  I have to do something, and I’m the only one who =can= do anything.  My suit is too small for you, and yours is damaged.  If I don’t try, we’re all dead, so if I try and fail…it doesn’t make any difference.”  But his heart pounded as he said it, and his palms were wet.

Davis looked at him, then down at Philip Norton.  “I can’t stop you, short of tying you up,” he said at last.  “So go ahead.”  He lay a heavy hand on Darryl’s shoulder.  “Forget what I said before.  Those charges shouldn’t damage that easily.  It’s not your fault.”

“It’s my fault for not doing my job,” said Darryl, and clamped the helmet down.

At first he found the going easy, since the crawler had had to stick to level terrain.  But as foot followed foot for mile after mile and the hours passed, the pace began to tell.  His legs ached after the first hour; he had never walked more than a mile at a time in his life.

He rested briefly when he felt he had to, but after several hours there came a time when he felt he could walk no longer.  The pain in his legs was too much, and he couldn’t get his breath¯.¯.¯. couldn’t get¯.¯.¯.

His air supply was running out!  He fumbled with the pack, hit the cutoff and felt the flow of air cease.  He would have to breathe the air in his suit while he made the change.

If only he hadn’t waited so long!  His hands were clumsy and his eyelids heavy.  The new pack was almost too heavy to lift, despite the low gravity, and his tingling fingers fumbled the connections.

But finally cool, fresh air flooded his suit and lungs, and with it came new energy.  He wondered how much of his fatigue had been due to his lack of oxygen.  With renewed hope, he pressed on.

Now, though, he knew the feel of the death that awaited his father and Davis if he failed—and if his father lived even that long.

Tears blinded him, and he blinked them away angrily.  Crying would do no good.  He had only one way to make up for his stupidity:  make it to Apollo and get help.

Time dragged on.  His footprints, sharp and clear in the harsh sunlight, stretched endlessly behind him.  The barren, blazing landscape seemed unchanging.  Darryl took to calling Apollo City constantly on his suit radio, but never got an answer.

Breathing became hard again, but this time there was no fresh air to be had.  He could only stagger on.

He tripped over a rock and discovered his eyes had been closed.  He tottered to his feet again.  Where were the crawler tracks?  He’d lost the—no, there they were.  How did they get over there? he wondered muzzily, but stumbled back to them.

Radio.  He should try the radio again.  “Apollo City—anyone!  Can you hear me?”  His voice came out in a croak.

He tripped and fell again.  His breath rasped in his ears as he struggled up.  The crawler tracks had moved again…it didn’t matter.  He had failed.  He had killed his father, and Davis, and now himself.  And I matter least of all, he thought.

He sank to his hands and knees, chest heaving, futilely trying to strain more oxygen from his nearly-exhausted air.

“…and I tell you, I heard something!”  The voice crackled in Darryl’s ears.  He found he was lying down again, and was faintly surprised at the softness of the rocky soil.

A different voice said, “You said you heard heavy breathing and someone mumbling.  I say you’re nuts.”

Darryl felt he was supposed to say something, something important.  But what?

“I know what I heard,” the first voice said stubbornly.  “Hello?  Come in, whoever you are.  Do you need help?”

Help.  That was it.  The word triggered Darryl’s sluggish brain.  “Help,” he tried saying.  His voice was ragged and hoarse, but the sound encouraged him.  “Help”!  Help me…”

“There is someone!  Close, too!”

“Over there—by those crawler tracks!”

A moment later Darryl felt himself being gently lifted.  He opened his eyes, which had somehow sagged shut, and caught a glimpse of the skeletal frame of an unpressurized lunar sled.  “Crawler…explosion…” he croaked.

“An explosion on a crawler? ¯Where?”

The metallic sheen of a spacesuit faceplate floated in front of Darryl’s eyes.  “What?” he said fuzzily.

“Where is the crawler?” the man said urgently.  The sled was underway.  A bump knocked Darryl’s head to one side, and he saw the lights of Apollo City, just over the ridge on which he had collapsed.  “Where is it?” the man said again.  “Come on, boy, you’ve got to tell us…”

Darryl made a supreme effort to make sense of the demand.  Numbers…the man wanted numbers.  The coordinates struggled to the surface of his mind and he whispered them before darkness swallowed him.

Darryl recovered quickly once air was restored to him, but for four days his father fought for life.  The shuttle from the orbiting station had rescued him and Davis barely in time.  Only when the doctors told Darryl his father was out of danger did he surrender completely to the rest they had prescribed for him.

When at last he was allowed to visit his father, he went into the room with mixed happiness and dread.  How could he face seeing his father lying in a hospital bed when he was the one who had put him there?

His father looked pale and drawn, but he smiled when Darryl came in.  “Was that enough adventure for you, son?”

Darryl couldn’t smile back.  “It was my fault,” he blurted.  “I dropped a charge, and didn’t check it or report it.  I could have killed you!”

His father quit smiling.  “You saved my life,” he said quietly.

“It wouldn’t have been in danger except for me!”

“We’ll never know that for sure, Darryl.  A lot of things could have caused that explosion.  You can’t be sure it was the charge you dropped.

“But what else—”

“It doesn’t matter,” his father said firmly.  “Come here.”

Darryl went closer, and his father clasped his hand.  “Now, listen to me.  Not doing your job properly was irresponsible and stupid.  You know that better than I do after what happened.  And it may even have caused the accident as you say.”  He squeezed Darryl’s hand hard.  “But even if it did, you more than made up for it.  I’m proud of you, son.

Darryl couldn’t speak, but he returned the squeeze: and, strangely, he felt not as if he had just ended a long, adventurous journey, but as if he were beginning one.

Kareen Aldona added a white highlight to the orange flank of a boulder, considered a moment, enlarged it a bit, then set her brush aside with a sigh. She had hoped to finish the painting that day, but shadows were lengthening in the canyon, and it would take her most of the two remaining hours of daylight to get back to the colony.

She stood, stretching, then moved back from the easel to compare her creation to the real thing. Not bad, she thought, but the light still isn’t quite right…. She shook her head. The sun, slightly more orange than Earth’s, had a subtle effect very difficult to capture. “Next time,” she promised herself. She cleaned her brushes, then packed them, her palette and her paints into her metal art case, which she stuffed into her backpack.

She stored the painting and easel inside the nearby cave she had discovered on her first visit to the canyon, then filled her canteen at the gurgling spring further inside. When she returned to the cave’s mouth she saw the alien for the first time.

Though slim and no taller than she, its thick, black fur made it look much larger. Eyes of brilliant, liquid yellow gleamed from its long-muzzled face as it picked its way on broad, clawed feet through the rocks. It wore only a thin gray belt, from which hung a knife and a leather pouch. A slender rod of crystal glittered on a silver chain around its neck.

Kareen’s breath froze in her throat, and at the same instant the creature looked up and saw her, and stopped. Even across the fifty meters separating them, she heard its low, menacing growl.

It can’t be real! her mind kept insisting, despite the evidence of her eyes. There’s no intelligent life on this planet. Dad’s the colony biologist, he should know, right? The survey showed nothing. No cities, no villages, not even cave dwellings!

But the impossibility of the alien’s presence didn’t make it go away. It stood its ground, staring at her, the growl rising to a cat-like moan that made the hair on the back of her neck rise up.

Kareen wanted to turn and run, but had nowhere to go. The only way into or out of the canyon was the slippery, rock-strewn slope above above the cave, and the thought of attempting it with the alien behind her was too terrifying to contemplate.

Never taking its eyes from her, the creature slowly sank crosslegged to the ground. It drew its knife and thrust it into the ground close by its side.

Kareen tried to swallow with a throat suddenly as dry as the canyon floor. The alien’s message seemed obvious; “I’m armed. Come no closer.”

Why doesn’t it just attack? she wondered sickly. I couldn’t fight it. I don’t even have a club.

She sat down on a large rock before her trembling knees collapsed, wrapped her arms around her legs and bleakly met the steady glare of the alien. But it doesn’t know that, she thought suddenly. It doesn’t know what kind of weapons I’ve got. It doesn’t realize I’m helpless…

She tensed as the creature reached into its pouch and took out a transparent, glassy cylinder. Still staring intently at Kareen, it took the crystal rod from around its neck and touched it to the cylinder.

Light flashed and Kareen jumped to her feet. Now what? A gun? A grenade? I have to convince it I’m dangerous, too!

She struggled out of the straps of her backpack, and opened it to take out the art case. The alien hissed softly when it saw the silver box. “Same to you,” Kareen whispered.

Holding the case on her lap, she took out a sketch pad and a pencil, carefully keeping the lid of the case between her and the alien, so it couldn’t see exactly what she was doing. “This ought to puzzle it,” she muttered. And at least she could leave a record of what killed her for the rest of the colonists…

…for her parents…

Blinking back sudden tears, she rummaged in the pack again and pulled out her binoculars, hoping to make out what the alien was doing with the cylinder and rod. She had the satisfaction of seeing the alien snatch up its knife as she pointed the binoculars in its direction, but even through them the cylinder was only a meaningless, light-filled tube.

The creature watched her a moment, then thrust the knife into the ground again–a little closer, this time. Good, she thought. Let it worry for a while.

Taking an occasional look through the glasses to get the details right, she began to sketch, while the alien continued to work on the glowing cylinder Kareen was convinced was a weapon. She only hoped the alien believed her imaginary weapons were as real as its own.

When the alien became hard to see, slowly disappearing into the gathering purple haze of twilight, Kareen put her sketchpad away. After the first few minutes when her hand had been inclined to shake, she had drawn well, better than usual, capturing a good likeness of the alien, even forgetting her fear for minutes at a time…but somehow her artistic success didn’t seem nearly as important as it usually did.

She had decided what to do. Though for all she knew the alien could see in the dark, she had to try to sneak out of the canyon in the night. She couldn’t just sit there, fighting sleep, picturing the alien creeping closer and closer…

She put the sketchbook in an outside pocket of the backpack and took out her canteen, taking a much-needed drink of water. Her stomach growled, reminding her of her missed supper. Her parents would be beginning to worry. Within an hour or two they would be organizing a search party.

Too long, she thought, waiting for dusk to become full night, watching the constant flickering glow that marked the alien’s location.

Abruptly the light vanished. Kareen gasped, then scrambled up, listening.

She heard nothing but the faint whisper of wind across the stones.

Now, she thought. Wiping sweaty palms on the front of her shirt, she began picking her way over the stone-strewn canyon floor toward the slope behind her.

Her progress was agonizingly slow. Every few seconds she froze, listening for the clicking of claws on the rocks or soft, hissing breathing. But hearing nothing did not calm her fears. When she couldn’t hear the alien, it could be anywhere.

When at last she reached the canyon wall, the first part of the ascent proved no problem. The gentle slope at the bottom base was no harder to traverse by darkness than by daylight.

But halfway up the slope steepened. Flat, slippery rocks shifted treacherously beneath her feet, and as they crashed down behind her, Kareen realized all hope of slipping out of the canyon unnoticed was gone.

Heart pounding with fear and exertion, she reached the last stretch of the climb, four meters of nearly vertical rock. She had climbed two meters when, as she reached for a new handhold, she heard rocks she had not dislodged crashing down into the canyon.

She jerked her head around to look, though there was nothing to see, and her feet slipped. For a moment she hung desperately by the fingers of one hand, scrabbling with the other, and then the rock gave way and she fell.

Agony stabbed her ankle as she hit the slate-strewn slope and rolled, gaining momentum, in a growing avalanche of rocks, down to the very bottom of the wall she had so torturously climbed.

As she lay dazed, bruised and bleeding, the rocks gradually stopped shifting and silence returned…or near-silence. Then the sliding of the rocks resumed. Someone–or some thing–was coming down the slope.

Kareen rolled over and sat up, but when she touched her ankle pain lanced through it, and she knew she couldn’t run, couldn’t even stand. Dust ground between her teeth, and she felt for her canteen, but the backpack that contained it had vanished, torn off somewhere during her headlong plunge.

Now she heard what she had only imagined before, the click of claws on rocks. The sound stopped. Light flickered up the slope as the alien bent over something wedged between two boulders…her backpack. She watched it paw through her belongings, sniffing the brushes and paints, paging through her sketchbook. It bent down and picked up the pack and the light went out again.

By the time it reached Kareen the pounding of her heart in her ears was as loud as its claws on the rocks. Finally it loomed above her, a blacker lump in the darkness. It tossed something at her and she almost screamed, but it was only her sketchpad. Light suddenly glowed from the crystal rod around the alien’s neck, and Kareen saw the sketchpad was open to her drawing of the alien.

From its pouch the alien drew out the glassy cylinder that had so frightened her, and, kneeling beside her, touched it with the crystal rod. A soft glow suffused it, and Kareen gasped.

Her own figure appeared in three dimensions inside the cylinder’s walls, rendered in perfect detail and color, sitting on a rock with her art case open and a pencil in her hands.

The alien made a sound like a soft purr and set the cylinder on the ground beside the sketchpad. Then it took Kareen’s canteen from the backpack and, supporting her head with its warm hand, trickled cold water between her lips.

Chane created a fascinating and unique world in Magebane, a stand-alone fantasy novel. There is a little predictability with the main characters’ story lines. Neither the romance between the sheltered girl and the worldly boy nor the prince who wishes for a more meaningful life are unexpected. Readers are likely to overlook this, however, as they race to find out what happens next in this fast-paced, action-packed book. This is an excellent recommendation for fantasy-loving teens looking for something out of the ordinary.

Read the whole thing.

Here’s the “high-concept” description from my proposal:

In a tyrannical land where obedience is ensured by magical Masks that all must wear, a renegade girl must learn to harness her own magical abilities to defeat oppression at home and invasion from outside.

And, just for fun, here’s the opening (as it stands now):

A week before her thirteenth birthday and her Masking, Mara sat on the city wall, bare legs dangling into space, and looked down past her dirty toes at the crowds milling around in the Outside Market.

From forty feet above, the brightly colored awnings of the vendors looked like a patchwork quilt, seamed with moving rivers of humanity. Masks of white, silver, red and blue glittered in the late-day sun, jewel-like beneath the elaborate headpieces favored by City women, in stark contrast to the unadorned hair of the country folk. If they wear a headscarf above their Masks they think they’re a poppinjay, Mara thought scornfully.

Mara herself was a City girl through and through. She couldn’t imagine living in the country, out in those green fields that stretched away from her toward the distant blue line of the ocean to the south, or in the forested hills that rose ridge by ridge toward the mountains to her right, the westering sun hanging just above their snow-capped peaks. What is there to do out there? she wondered. Play with cows? Dig holes?

She glanced over her shoulder into the city of Tamita, built in terraced ranks up the flanks of Fortress Hill. Directly behind her, Maskmakers’ Way, straight as an arrow, climbed through a series of stone steps all the way to the North Gate of the Autarch’s Palace, a vast many-towered pile of white stone, aflutter with blue and gold pennants. She could see the green tile roof of her own home up there on the final terrace before the long stair leading to the Palace. She could see her parents’ bedroom window. She wondered if her mother were looking out.

Dung, I hope not! She’d throw a fit if she saw me sitting up here, looking like this.

Now, here’s the fun part: since “Edward Willett” is a science fiction writer and “Lee Arthur Chane” writes adult fantasy and how well his book Magebane is going to sell is still an open question, Masks will be written by…someone else. Which means I need a second pseudonym. Nothing figured out yet, but it’s a lot of fun trying out various possibilities. I mean, how often do you get to name yourself from scratch?

Stay tuned!

This is the first book in the Shards of Excalibur series. And it’s going to be a good one-series I mean. Loved the first and how Arthurian legend was woven into a troubled teens life. A character who drove the story, which is always a favorite for me. I liked her a lot–especially in once scene where the bad guy (er, girl) gets a taste of–well, I shall say no more. This is also a favourite of one of my book club kids. He’s twelve and a voracious reader who loves 39 Clues, Rangers Apprentice, Percy Jackson. The sad bit about lending him the ARC (thanks to  Lobster Press!) is he read the book good and early. He’s anxious to (read) the second.

Nice!

By way of reminder, here’s the synopsis of this upcoming (though probably not until next spring, I’m told now) sequel:

In France, archaeologists have begun to investigate newly discovered cave paintings…but deeper inside the cave, resting below a pool of icy black water, lies a different treasure: the second shard of Excalibur.

Ariane may be on a quest to stop Rex Major—Merlin’s modern-day persona—from taking over the world, but she still has to deal with high school. Wally’s sister, Felicia, and her clique have vowed to take revenge, but with Ariane’s newfound powers and the first shard of Excalibur by her side, the fight takes a dangerous turn. After Felicia is gravely injured, Wally begins to question his loyalties. Can he trust Ariane or the Lady of the Lake, the woman who gave Ariane her dangerous powers? Rex Major is more than willing to take advantage of Wally’s doubts.

Ariane must recover the second shard–but this time she may have to do it alone.