Free Summoned to Tourney by Mercedes Lackey; Ellen Guon

The image of Ria vanished instantly as he lost the thread of the melody, swirling back into the fog.
    He sat back, his fingers clenched tightly around the flute. Then, hesitantly, he brought up the flute again and began to play.
    This time, he didn’t blindly reach out for whatever image would appear. Note by note, he built the idea, gathering in the moonlight as a canvas. Then he sat back and looked at what he had created.
    A hospital room. Seated by the window, an elderly woman in a red silk dressing gown, staring out through the darkened glass. No, not an elderly woman; a blond woman in her thirties, her face drawn and pale, motionless, giving the impression of great age. Her eyes never moving, she gazed intently through the glass—at nothing. An empty courtyard.
    The blue eyes never wavered, only blinking occasionally. He could hear someone moving through the room, the sounds of someone walking closer. “Time to be in bed, Miz Llewellyn,” an older man’s voice said, and then the orderly was helping her stand, walking with her back to the bed. He tucked her under the blanket, then moved out of sight. A moment later, the click of a door closing. And the blond woman was now staring at the ceiling, her eyes never moving, the expression on her face never changing.
    Eric drew back from the image, horrified. It isn’t fair! She was cruel and manipulative, but she never deserved this!
    But if the other image was also a Far-Seeing, then maybe eventually she‘ll be okay. Maybe eventually she’ll get past what happened to her at Griffith Park.
    But if that was a True Seeing, and she does recover—
    —then what in the hell am I doing in a motel room with Ria Llewellyn?
    Okay, okay. Better not worry about that right now. Concentrate on what I saw in the bad dream…let’s see if you have any basis in reality, little nightmare…
    The images of Ria faded back into the mists, as Eric began playing the tune again. Slowly, focusing all his concentration on the image, he called out into the night, trying to reach the future he’d seen in his dreams, over and over again. Then, suddenly, he saw it, the images spread out before him.
    A desolate landscape of San Francisco, the streets dark and deserted, buildings half-collapsed, shattered. He stood at the corner of Market and Castro, near the entrance to the subway station. It was a part of the city that he’d walked through many times, especially with Kory…Korendil loved to walk through the Castro District. Kory’s cousin Arvin, the dancer, lived only a few blocks away.
    Now, the streets were empty of any sign of life… not a human being, or a bird, or stray cats, or even insects. Only broken glass, and wrecked cars, and the occasional shadow flickering in the moonlight.
    No, not shadows, he thought. Nightflyers. Quietly, trying not to draw any attention to himself, Eric moved down the street, past the movie theater and the bookstores, wondering what else he could find here. There was nothing, no sign of life, no clue as to why this had happened.
    He stepped over the corpse of a young blond child, lying on the sidewalk, and towards a newsstand. He looked around for a newspaper, wanting to see the date printed on it, and then stopped short. He turned, very slowly, and looked back at the corpse.
    Tiny shadows were flickering over it, barely visible against the boy’s pale skin. Eric reached down and lifted one of the shadows, the nearly-insubstantial creature feeling like damp tissue paper against his skin. It was tiny, not quite the size of his palm, but already he could see the distinctive billowing-cloak form of a Nightflyer.
    Jesus, these things can breed!
    He dropped it quickly, brushing off his hand. The shadow bounced against the concrete, then drifted back to the corpse, hovering over the dead boy’s eyes. Shivering, Eric turned away.
    A Nightflyer was floating directly in front of him.
    Eric brought his flute up to his lips, desperately thinking of anything he could