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

and she liked it fine. Her children stirred. The Old Phoenix and the idea of adventure drew them. Well, naturally adventure drew them—they’d never known much. Alianora had, and knew she’d had a bellyful.
    “I stay here,” she said. If her voice roughened, then it did, that was all. She reached out and took the knight’s hand. “Go where you would, dear Holger, and God keep you safe wherever it may be.” Anger and jealousy flared once more. “Whatever else you do, mind yon witch!”
    “Oh, I will. I’m not always as dumb as I look—just most of the time. And I’ve got more miles on me now. I’m not likely to be so stupid that way as I might’ve been a while back. I hope.” Holger squeezed her hand hard. Then he leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers. “Good luck to you, kiddo, and to yours. You found what you were after. Me, I guess I’ve got to go look some more, don’t I?”
    He stumped toward the Old Phoenix, footfalls softening as he went away. When he opened the door, he stood limned for a moment by the light beyond him. He waved, once, then stepped inside. The door closed again before Alianora had to hear Morgan le Fay’s voice.
    She burst into tears anyhow. Theodo put his arm round her shoulder—less comfort than she would have liked, but as much as she could get. “If we’re not going in,” he said, “we’d better get back.”
    “Aye.” She nodded. He would feel the motion even if he couldn’t see it. “Let’s do that.”

    Alianora woke early, before anyone else in the house, after a night of confused dreams. For a moment, she wondered if everything that had happened the day before was only a dream. But no. That was real. She knew the difference.
    She tiptoed outside without disturbing her kin. It was still gloomy: twilight, with dawn coming but not yet come. She walked toward the well, far enough to discover that the tavern had its usual seeming once more. Someone sprawled asleep in front of the doorway; a tankard lay on its side near his head. Walacho: she knew his snores.
    No sign of Holger. Well, she hadn’t thought there would be. She turned around and went home.
    Alianna was up when she came in. Even in the dim light, her daughter’s eyes glowed. Alianora smiled to see her. She’d glowed like that herself, once upon a time. “Quite a day, yesterday,” she said.
    “It was! I’ll remember it forever!” Alianna said.
    “As will I.” Alianora hesitated. Then, remembering, she asked, “Might I . . . wear the white tunic once more, for just this morning?”
    Alianna set a palm soft with understanding on her arm. “Of course, Mother. Of course.”

    AFTERWORD:

    For me to talk about Poul Anderson is like a young guitarist talking about Hendrix or Keith Richards—he’s one of the main guys from whom I learned my licks. What makes a story, how to tell a story, which words to choose to tell it as well as you can . . . What I know, I know in no small measure because so much of what Poul did rubbed off on me. I started reading him long before I started (and then soon stopped) shaving, and have been doing it ever since, always with enjoyment and always with profit. That we would become colleagues and, toward the end of his life, friends, shows me I’ve done a few things right in my life, anyhow. And that he and Karen would come to my house for dinner . . . Well, if you’d told that to my not-yet-shaving self, he would’ve said, “No way!” But yes. There may be something to this growing-up business after all.

    —Harry Turtledove



A SLIP IN TIME
by S. M. Stirling
    Considered by many to be the natural heir to Harry Turtledove’s title of King of the Alternate History novel, fast-rising science fiction star S. M. Stirling is the bestselling author of the Island in the Sea of Time series (Island in the Sea of Time, Against the Tide of Years, On the Ocean of Eternity), in which Nantucket comes unstuck in time and is cast back to the year 1250; and the Draka series