Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 7: March 2014 (14 page)

“And did you find them?”

“Not yet,” he admitted. “At my mother’s request I came here first, to give word to her kin that she was well, and happy, and greatly honored by her lord.
Which is the entire truth.
My father—loves her dearly; grants her every wish before she has a chance to voice it. I could wish to find a lady with whom—well, that was one of the reasons that I sought Herrel and his lady.”

He was silent for so long, staring broodingly into the
flames, that
Glenda ventured to prompt him.

“So—you came here?”

“Eh? Oh, aye. And understandably
enough,
earned no small reputation among my mother-kin for hunting, though they little guessed in what form I did my tracking!” He grinned at her, and she found herself grinning back. “So when there were rumors of another Were here at the edge of the Waste—and a Were that thoughtlessly preyed on the beasts of these people as well as its rightful game—understandably enough, I came to hear of it. I thought at first that it must be Herrel, or a son. Imagine my surprise on coming here to learn that the
Were
was female! My reputation preceded me—the headman begged me to rid the village of their ‘monster’—” He spread his hands wide. “The rest, you know.”

“What—what will you do with me now?” she asked in a small, fearful voice.

“Do with you?” he seemed surprised. “Nothing—nothing not of your own will, lady. I am not going to harm you—and I am not like my father and brother, to force a one in my hand into anything against her wishes. I—I go forward as I had intended—to find Herrel. You, now that you know what your actions should
not
be, lest you arouse the anger of ordinary folk against you, may remain here—”

“And?”

“And I shall tell them I have killed the monster. You shall be safe enough—only remember that you must
never
let the leopard control you, or you are lost. Truly, you should have someone to guide and teach you, though—”

“I—know that, now,” she replied, very much aware of how attractive he was, gold eyes fixed on the fire, a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead. But no man had ever found her to be company to be
sought-after. There was no reason to think that he might be hinting—

No reason, that is, until he looked full into her eyes, and she saw the wistful loneliness there, and a touch of pleading.

“I would be glad to teach you, lady,” he said softly. “Forgive me if I am over-forward, and clumsy in my speech. But—I think you and I could companion well together on this quest of mine—and—I—” he dropped his eyes to the flames again, and blushed hotly “—I think you very fair.”

“Me?” she squeaked, more startled than she had been since he transformed before her.

“Can you doubt it?” he replied softly, looking up eagerly. He held out one hand to her. “Can I hope—you
will
come with me?”

She touched his fingers with the hesitation of one who fears to break something. “You mean you really want me with you?”

“Since I touched your mind—lady, more than you could dream! Not only are you kin-kind, but—mind-kin, I think.”

She smiled suddenly, feeling almost light-headed with the revelations of the past few hours—then gi
g
gled, as an irrelevant though came to her. “Harwin—what happens to your clothes?”

“My
what
?” he stared at her for a moment as if she had broken into a foreign tongue—then looked at her, and back at himself—and blushed, then grinned.

“Well? I mean, I left bits of jeans and t-shirt all over the Waste when
I
changed—”

“What happens to your ring, lady?”

“It—” her forehead furrowed in thought. “I don’t know, really. It’s gone when I change,
it’s
back when I change back.” She regarded the tiny beast thoughtfully, and it seemed as if one of its topaz eyes closed in a slow wink.
But—no.
That could only have been a trick of the firelight.

“Were-magic, lady.
And magic I think I shall let you avail yourself of, seeing as I can hardly let you take a chill if you are to accompany me—” He rummaged briefly in his pack and came up with a shirt and breeches, both far too large for her, but that was soon remedied with a belt and much rolling of sleeves and cuffs. She changed quickly under the shelter of his cloak.

“They’ll really change with me?” she looked down at herself doubtfully.

“Why not try them?” He stood, and held out his hand—then blurred in that disconcerting way. The black leopard looked across the fire at her with eyes that glowed with warmth and approval.

:The
night still has time to run, Glenda-my-lady. Will you not run with it, and me
?:

The eyes of the cat-ring glowed with equal warmth, and Glenda found herself filled with a feeling of joy and freedom—and of
belonging
—that she tossed back her head and laughed aloud as she had never in her life done before. She stretched her own arms to the stars, and called on the power within her for the first time with joy instead of anger—

And there was no pain—only peace—as she transformed into a slim, lithe she-leopard, whose eyes met that of the he with a happiness that was heart-filling.

Copyright © 1987 by Mercedes Lackey

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ON SALE MARCH 15, 2014

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Lou Berger lives in Denver with three kids, three Shelties, and a kink-tailed cat with odd habits. This story marks his third sale, and his second appearance in
Galaxy’s Edge
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The tour guide found us first. I held Suzanne’s hair away from her face as she vomited again, splashi
ng the side of a First Century a
ncient Judean building. He shook his head at us.

“Time travel ain’t easy, now, is it?”

I looked at him with shock. “You speak English?”

He rolled his eyes and extended a grimy palm. “Pay up, first.”

Suzanne looked up at me with bloodshot eyes and I dropped her hair and pulled a canteen from my backpack. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth and chugged. She tried to hand the canteen back to me but I declined. She dug in her fanny pack for the little pouch of silver coins we’d been given.

He counted them, grunted and made them disappear. “So, we’re off!”

I helped Suzanne to her feet and we followed him down narrow dirt alleys to various places of historical significance. Here was where the Last Supper had been held. The fish was overdone. Here was where the cross was delivered to him, this was the path he took and here, he said, pointing to a spot in the street i
n
distinguishable from any other spot, was where he’d fallen under the weight of the cross. Suzanne snapped flash pictures of everything.

People milled around us, some of them staring, but most of them just going about their daily lives. The tour guide knew everybody, it seemed, and I guess they knew him too.

“He was very nice, in person, you know,” he reminisced. “He had a soft voice, not very overbearing, and was quite the prankster. He was always tricking people.”

“Say,” I interrupted him. “How is it that you can speak English so well?”

He laughed and scratched his belly, which seemed to take up most of his robe. “I followed a guy one day behind a bush, saw the portal open up and watched him disappear. I followed him and wound up three thousand years in the future, threw up like your wife did back there, then took six months of English classes. When I finally knew enough, they sent me back to the exact second I’d left.”

He snapped his fingers, remembering. “Also, he always got me.
Every time.
I got him good, too, once.
Too good.”

A man on his way to the market stopped when he recognized the tour guide, made a quick gesture of
deference, muttered something,
then
left.

“What did he say?” I asked.

His face grew solemn as if a light switch had been doused.
“Nothing important.
They still call me Prefect, even though I’m not one anymore. It’s no matter. What’s next?”

Suzanne still looked pale and gave me hungry eyes.

“Well, then, Prefect, can you lead us to some food, maybe? Something we might be able to eat without getting dysentery?”

He grinned, clapped his hands together and strode off. We followed him to an open-air market where we bought a basket of dates, four loaves of bread and a goatskin of wine. The wine was strong at first, but it mellowed quickly. I handed a loaf to him and tore another in half, giving some to Suzanne.

She spoke to him for the first time. “What about the people here? Can’t they tell we’re … different?”

He laughed, spraying my leg with warm bits of wet bread. “No, they - we - are a very superstitious lot. If they suspected you were from the future, your own corpses would be up on that hill.” He pointed off to the low hills outside the city where the Son of God had died.

“So,” he continued, still chuckling. “That time I got him was at the end, but I didn’t know it was the end. They brought him to me and I waved him away, and they ran him out of there.
The look on his face!”
He grabbed his belly and
laughed,
a deep, pleasant laugh.

“Prefect,” Suzanne looked at him oddly, her face curious. “May I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” he said, wiping his hands on his robe and grabbing a date from the basket.
“Anything.”

“Prefect,” she said.
“Is a title.
You said you weren’t a prefect anymore. What is your actual name?”

He grew still, and the laughter that had filled his eyes drained away, to be replaced with a haunted look. “They weren’t supposed to kill him,” he said finally, in a whisper. He looked at his hands, then back at us, his eyes pleading. “I washed my hands of him. I didn’t mean for him to die, dammit! I was only playing a prank!”

Original (First) publication

Copyright © 2014 by Lou J. Berger

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Elizabeth Bear is a two-time Hugo winner as well as a Campbell winner, and the author of more than 25 books, though still in her first decade as a science fiction writer.

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2.

Doc Holliday leaned his head way back, tilting his hat to shade his eyes from the glare of the November sun and said, “Well, that still looks like some Jules Verne shit to me.”

The hulk that loomed over, curving gently outward to a stalklike prow, could have been the rust-laceworked, rust-orange hulk of any derelict ironclad. Except it was a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, and a hundred times too big to be a ship. It was too big, in fact, to be an opera hall, and that was where Doc’s imagination failed him.

Behind him, four women and a man shifted in their saddles, leather creaking. None of them spoke. Doc figured they were just as awed as he was. More, maybe: he’d stopped here once before, when he rode into Tombstone the previous year. None of
them
had ever seen it.

One of the
horses
whuffed, stamping baked caliche. A puff of dust must have risen from the impact. Doc could smell it, iron and salt and grit.
His own
mount picked its way between crumbling chunks of metal and some melted, scorched substance with the look of resin or tortoiseshell.

One of the women said something pleased and indistinct to her companions. Doc didn’t strain too hard to overhear.