Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

“Can Dexter and any of the crows who want to come with me?”

“I don’t see why not,” Samina said. “I’ve brought back stranger things from my travels. Are you really certain that you want to leave your home?”

Maia nodded. “I wasn’t raised alone in the forest; that happened after my parents died and my brother antagonized all our neighbors. I didn’t know why everyone suddenly hated him—and me—but now that I do, I think it will be better for everyone if I leave here.”

“Then you can come with us as soon as Clyton and I can travel,” Samina said.

The Healer had done some work on Clyton, and he was walking normally now. It looked as though the flesh Maia had accidentally gouged out of his leg was going to heal completely without so much as a scar.

The crows were still telling stories of their trip to the temple; they had been ever since their return. They appeared to regard it as a great adventure.

Samina smiled as she watched Maia listen to them. “What are they saying?” she asked.

“They’re telling stories,” Maia said. “It’s hard to sort out and put into words.”

“Did you know that there are two name for a flock of crows?” Samina asked.

“No,” Maia admitted. “Most of the villagers called them a nuisance, but I never thought of them that way.”

“They’re often called a ‘murder of crows,’ but yours saved my life, so that’s not right for them.” Samina grinned. “These are obviously the other kind: a ‘story-telling of crows’.”

“I do talk with them a lot,” Maia admitted, “and they certainly talk back.”

“You know,” Samina said. “I think you’re wasted as a fletcher—not that you aren’t good at it,” she added hastily, “but there are more good fletchers than there are people with Animal Mindspeech.”

“So you think I should do something else?” Maia asked uncertainly. “What?”

Samina smiled and took Maia’s hand. “There’s a Temple in Haven that would kill to have you—if all its priests weren’t such gentle and peaceful souls.”

“There’s a temple that would want me?” Maia said in astonishment. “What kind of temple is that?”

“The Temple of Thenoth, the Lord of the Beasts.”

:It does sound like your kind of place.: Dexter’s mental voice was encouraging. Maia started laughing.

“Yes,” she agreed, “that does sound like a place I could fit in.”

Waiting To Belong

by Kristin Schwengel

Kristin Schwengel’s work has appeared in two of the previous Valdemar short story anthologies, among others. She and her husband live near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and recently adopted a gray- and-black tabby kitten named (what else?) Gandalf. Kristin divides her time between an administrative job, a growing career as a massage therapist, and writing and other pastimes.

When the Companion had come to Breyburn, folk had gathered in the square, though no one had raised any summoning cry. Nearly the whole of the town was there to see who would be Chosen when the dazzling white horse trotted into the square, gleaming harness-bells jingling and dancing in the late afternoon light.

Not that anyone truly doubted for whom the Companion had come on Search. No one was surprised to see Teo standing to the front of the crowd, framed by his family, staring at the Companion with a dumbstruck, delirious smile. His joy shone from every fiber of his being, so strong Shia could have sworn that she felt it too, rippling through her in waves.

Shia had turned her gaze away at the last moment before the Companion brushed its (no, her) soft nose against Teo’s, incandescent blue eyes meeting guileless brown even as their minds spoke. To Shia, it had seemed too intimate a moment to be observed—never mind that the rest of the town was staring avidly. She could not watch it.

Afterward, there had been an evening of well-wishing, of jokes and congratulations, and the occasional hearty “We always knew you’d make a Herald someday! Surprised they waited till you reached fifteen winters to send a Companion out for you, lad!”

And then they had gone, Teo and his Companion, off to Haven and his new life with the Heralds. Shia had held a baffling empty ache deep in her heart, taking small breaths to control it as she (and the rest of the town) watched them canter off the next morning. Teo’s face was flushed with the excitement, his unruly hair bouncing in time with his Companion’s long strides. She had watched only until he was far enough down the Old Quarry Road that she wouldn’t be thought rude, then had fled to the stillness and sanctuary of her herb room.

It was there that Calli Stadres found her, her head bent over the table while she stared unseeing at the plants and herb mixtures before her, one foot and ankle twined anxiously around the leg of her tall stool.

“He looked back.”