Songs of Love & Death

Her name. She understood, suddenly, in a gust of memory, how the wizard had only spoken her name twice, and each time changed her. Something else hit her on the cheek. Palo jerked his arms up to fend off a hail of missiles. She had heard the wizard’s name, once—what was it—

He stood there, laughing. Palo clutched her, as hard things rained down on both of them, and she flung her arms around him to stay on her feet.

She shouted, “Goodman Greenough, Greengood, Greenman, Greenham, Godham—”

The wizard laughed, disdainful. She sagged under the weight of the attack.

“Greenam, Goodman, Goodgreen—”

The wizard laughed again. But he was slowly turning, spinning around in place. His white robes flew off; what they had covered was not as tall, was lumpy, green, damp, covered with leaves or feathers or scales. It spun faster and faster, and the court besetting Palo and Fioretta let out a screech.

Their target had changed. The walls and columns erupted hands, legs, bodies. The great throne behind the wizard reared up into a scrawny old man and two brawny boys, who hurled themselves on the whirling green demon. The floor burst up into waves of bodies, wild hair like spume, and the arch of shoulders rising. In pieces and as one, the prisoners of the castle flung themselves past Fioretta and Palo and onto their tormentor. Fioretta cried out. Something struck her from above, and she looked up; the roof was sagging down, as legs and hands and heads rained down from it. The floor was rising around her, breaking into a tumble of arms and legs, buttocks, elbows. She clutched Palo’s hand. In the door, through the thickening downpour of the collapsing roof, she saw the cook, laughing.

“Run,” Palo shouted in her ear. “Run!”

She turned and hobbled after him. He caught her hand and held her up. They struggled against the tide of bodies rushing at the wizard. The air was thick with some kind of damp hot green mist and she could see nothing, but she followed blindly where he drew her. Her leg hurt. Palo’s hand in hers dragged her on through the confusion. She could not breathe. The ground under her was falling away.

Then under her feet was the rocky forest floor. Suddenly she could see again. She limped along, gasping for breath, her hand in Palo’s, along the mountain path. Turning, she looked back.

Back there the last of the castle was vanishing into a clump of trees clinging to the mountainside. The screaming and howling faded. She slowed, panting, her bad leg caving in, and he slid his arm around her waist.

He said, “G-g-g-ood enough?”

She turned to him, to his plain, pocky face, smiling at her. Her one true, brave knight. He had always been there, but neither of them had known. A gust of love swept over her, warm and sweet. She still held his hand and she squeezed it tight. “Good enough,” she said, and kissed him.

Melinda M. Snodgrass

Here’s a compelling drama set in deep space that reunites lovers long parted by rank, social status, and circumstance—although, as they both soon come to realize, it may not reunite them for very long…

A writer whose work crosses several mediums and genres, Melinda M. Snodgrass has written scripts for television shows such as Profiler and Star Trek: The Next Generation (for which she was also a story editor for several years), written a number of popular science fiction novels, and was one of the co-creators of the long-running Wild Cards series, for which she has also written and edited. Her novels include Circuit, Circuit Breaker, Final Circuit, The Edge of Reason, Runespear (with Victor Milan), High Stakes, Santa Fe, and Queen’s Gambit Declined. Her most recent novel is The Edge of Ruin, the sequel to The Edge of Reason. Her media novels include the Wild Cards novel Double Solitaire and the Star Trek novel The Tears of the Singers. She’s also the editor of the anthology A Very Large Array. She lives in New Mexico.

The Wayfarer’s Advice

We came out of Fold only twenty-three thousand kilometers from Kusatsu-Shirane. “Good job,” I started to say, but was interrupted by blaring impact alarms.