Free Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson by Greg Bear, Gardner Dozois Page A

from anything else. Stars, a nail-paring of moon, and firelight leaking out between shutter slats and through badly chinked walls and spilling from partly open doorways kept darkness from being absolute. All the same, Alianora planted her feet with care, trying not to step in a hole or a puddle or anything nasty.
    A cat’s eyes glowed green, then vanished. A dog growled a warning that faded into a whine when it decided it didn’t want to take on so many humans after all.
    “Right over here, y’see?” Theodo said in a low voice that wouldn’t bother neighbors already abed. “Not so far from the well. It’s—” He grunted in surprise. “The shape of it’s wrong.”
    “Aye, it is,” Alianora agreed wonderingly. The tavern shouldn’t bulk so tall against the sky. It looked as if it owned two stories. She’d seen such things in her travels with Holger, but there wasn’t a building like that in the village . . . or there hadn’t been. The beam-ends of the roof were oddly and ornately carven.
    “I know that shape,” Holger breathed. “I wondered if the Old Phoenix would show up tonight. You don’t always find it, but sometimes it finds you.”
    “How do you mean?” Alianora asked.
    “It’s one of those places between the worlds that I was talking about. It doesn’t belong to any of them,” Holger answered. “I can’t explain it better than that. I don’t think anybody else can, either.”
    The door opened. For a moment, Walacho’s swag-bellied shape stood silhouetted against the light spilling out from within. It wasn’t what the village drunkard had expected. But if it wasn’t the tavern, it plainly was a tavern. That would do for Walacho. He waddled inside.
    Before the door swung shut, Alianora glimpsed a bar, with a plump man—definitely not Gerold, who was on the lean side—standing behind it. In front were a few small tables. Walacho was heading towards one of them. At another sat . . . Alianora stiffened. Hair blacker than the night sky; a proud, harsh, beautiful face; long satin dress caressing every lush curve . . .
    “That’s Morgan le Fay!” she blurted, and knew not why she should sound so furious. Because the great sorceress had aged not a day these past thirty years? That should have been reason enough and more, but somehow her rage ran deeper yet.
    The way Holger said “Yeah” made her understand why. He went on, “I’m not surprised to see her there. She’s one the Old Phoenix would draw, sure as sure. And we’ve got a few things to talk about, the two of us. Uh-huh, just a few.”
    “Talk?” Alianora snarled the word, as if she’d been in the habit of transforming to cat herself rather than to swan.
    “Well, that, too.” Holger seemed sourly amused. “You don’t want me, but you don’t want me having fun with anybody else, either?”
    “Not with her!” Alianora said. “When did she bring you aught but grief?”
    “There were times, back in the day. There sure were.” By the way he answered, he might not have thought of them for many a year, but that made the memories no less sweet.
    “Perhaps—for her purposes. Never for yours.” Alianora knew trouble when she saw it, no matter how seductive its package.
    “That could be,” Holger allowed, so he wasn’t altogether blind. No, not altogether. He made as if to bow to her in the darkness. “If you want to play nursemaid, you can come in with me.”
    “When I came out, would I come hither and not into one of your other worlds?” she asked. Would Walacho’s family have to make do without him, as if he’d gone into Elf Hill and emerged the next morning to find a hundred years gone in the wider world? They might prove better off, but that wasn’t the point.
    “You probably would. Most people do, most of the time,” Holger said.
    “That is not warrant enough,” Theodo declared. He wasn’t in the habit of speaking for Alianora; he’d learned she didn’t fancy it when he tried. He did it now, though,