TV Times (1969)

How many hours did I sit here listening to silence that didn't break into a channel identification jingle? How long had it been since someone yammered at me with a voice that sounded like a smile, or sang a cute, lyrical song about garbage bags or underarm deodorant. An owl hooted and doesn't cheerfully remind me not to pollute. A coyote cried his loneliness to the sky and there wasn't road runner in sight.

I was alone, completely alone, and at somewhat of a loss, as if this were my first solo trip away from home, as if I had never lived forty six years on my own. That sounds strange, doesn't it? Yet, sitting in my big old chair, staring out past the outskirts of town at the desert, I knew I have never been more alone.

Ah, I was a foolish old man. All I need do was get up and walk the old street into town. It wasn't much of a town, but it was mine and I knew everyone in it. Of course, no one but Gilda would be awake at this hour, but that didn't matter. She would be there, sitting at the counter in her store, bent over the latest issues of her magazines like a golden haired hunch back. She always kept the new magazines in her back room until she'd read them all. Then she put them out on the racks, and as people bought them she'd say:

"There's a real good story about frogs in there," if they bought the National Geographic, or "Big coats are coming back into style for the winter this year," or whatever the fashion magazines said. Yeah, Gilda always had something to say about the magazines she'd read during her long, lonely nights. It was only when she got to the Ellery Queen that she couldn't and wouldn't be bothered, or she'd give the endings away.

But, with the power out all over town and her eyes getting as bad as they were, I couldn't see her perched on her high stool with only the white fire of a Coleman lantern hissing nearby. No, like all the rest of us, I would bet she was sitting outside, waiting for the power to come back on.

A spot of light appeared across the street, like the dot on a dying tube, and I leaned forward to see who it was.

"Jeb, is that you?"

"Hot out, ain't it," Jeb said and shuffled across the street from his house. He swiveled the white beam of his flashlight up and it struck my eyes like a flash of lightning. It dropped and found the porch steps and guided him up to the old rocking chair I'd just repaired. It creaked as he sat down and aimed his flashlight at the floor. He was ninety eight and his hands, holding the silver tube of light, were creased and wrinkled like the land around us. Near all of his teeth were gone, except the two in front, and they made him look like Mortimer Snerd, all country dumb and proud of it.

"You forgot how hot it is when the fans go off," I said and he chuckled.

"S'pose so. What'da'ya reckon' happened to the lights?"

"The Palo Verde nuclear plant probably blew up," I suggested and he laughed again.

"Ah, we'da seen that from here," he said. "Prob'ly just a thunderstorm. They'll be back on soon."

"Hope so. Perry Mason is on at eleven."

"Oh. Well. Have you eaten?"

"Can't see to cook," I said.

He held out his flashlight. "This'll help."

I almost laughed at his subtlety, and pushed myself out of my chair.

"You just stay right here where its cool," I said and took the flashlight from him. "I'll fix us some dinner."

"Sure I can't help?" He asked, lazily rocking back and forth in his chair. I let the screen door bang shut behind me before I assured him I could take care of it alone.

I crossed the living room to the kitchen with the flashlight beam feeling the way like a white cane and checked the darkened refrigerator for the leftover stew. To my surprise it wasn't there in a Tupperware bowl. It was still in the pan on the stove. It looked okay, so I set it to heat on the stove's blue flame and searched for the can opener in the back of the cutlery drawer. I opened up the frozen orange juice and squeezed it out of the cardboard can like toothpaste. It plopped and dripped into the bottom of the glass pitcher, and I dumped the half melted ice in with it. I stirred the leftover stew and split it between the two plates with the last of the sourdough bread. I turned off the stove and set the plates and pitcher on a tray with flatware and glasses, and juggled the tray so I could hold the flashlight to find my way back out again.

"Here we go," I said as I backed the screen door open and turned to Jeb, only to find the rocking chair empty. "Jeb?" The screen door slammed behind me as I crossed to the table between our chairs and set the tray down. "Jeb? Where'd you get to?" I swung the beam across the yard, across the street and found no sight of him. "Jeb!" I shouted and started down the porch steps.

"I ain't deaf," he said behind me. I nearly slipped on the steps, I turned so fast, and transfixed him in the rocking chair. He took another bite out of his piece of bread and looked at me as he chewed. He swallowed and said: "I'm waiting for ya."

"Where did you go?"

"Go? Where's there to go, boy?" He looked at me kind of funny, as if he was sharing a private joke with me, but it wasn't a joke I knew.

"You gotta bottle, boy?" He asked with a distasteful glance at the orange juice.

"A bottle," I repeated dumbly and sat down.

"Yeah, you know," he gestured with his knobby thumb to his lips and tipped his head back. "Do ya, huh?"

"I have some beer," I said. "But its warm."

"Beer?" He spat on the floor and reached for his plate. He looked at it and wrinkled his nose. "Is this the best you kin do?"

"It's good food," I said defensively, and took a bite of my stew. It tasted old and cold and the bread was a hard crust when it should have been new.

"What's going on here?" I demanded and swung the flashlight accusingly on Jeb, but he was gone again. I stood up so fast I knocked over my plate and it clattered on the porch. "What the bloody hell is going on here?"

Nobody answered. Jeb didn't suddenly reappear. Cursing, I crossed the street to pound on Jeb's door.

"It ain't locked, " Jeb said from inside, and piqued my anger even more.

"Come out here, you old fart!" I shouted.He didn't answer, so I barged in, and gagged on the stench in his house. I swung the flashlight around as I covered my nose and my mouth.

"You're takin' you're time," he snapped, and I caught him in the light, sitting in his chair in front of his old black and white TV. Only, as I stepped forward to him, I saw something was different, and I knew this was the source of the smell. It was Jeb alright. It was his body and he was dead.

There was no way to tell how long he had been dead, but I thought by the way he looked and smelled it was at least a couple of days. Yet that couldn't be! I had seen him. I had talked to him. He had talked to me. He couldn't be dead, and to prove it, I touched his sleeve, but he was real. Then, the other....Jesus Christ. Only a ghost could vanish on a whim or at will. Christ on a crutch.

I left his house, but I didn't go home. He might be there. I hurried down the street and into town and crossed the empty main street to Gilda's store. I had to tell someone about Jeb so I burst through the door and started for the little back room, but the beam of my flashlight stabbed across the countertop and caught Gilda sitting on her high chair, bowed over her magazine.

"Gilda, Jeb's dead," I said and waited for her to look up. But she didn't look up and I realized there was no light on, so how could she be sitting there reading. "Gilda?"

I touched her and she fell over. Without a sound, she fell over and lay still and huddled, in the same position in which she had died. A smell came from her, too, the same smell as in Jeb's house.

"Ah, Jesus, what's happening here!"

I ran out into the street calling for help, but all the houses were dark and no one came to answer my cries. I ran from house to house, but never entered them. The smell told me it was all the same, and I was alone, like a tormented character out of the Twilight Zone.

I returned to my house, and just as I had feared, Jeb was sitting there in the rocking chair. I stared at him, at the way he watched me so thoughtfully, and I realized suddenly that he had all his teeth.

"You're dead," I said.

"I don't feel dead," he replied. "Do you?"

"What? What did you say?"

He didn't answer. He just smiled with his perfect white teeth. I threw his flashlight at him and both he and it disappeared. I strangled a cry and yanked the screen door open. I ran to the living room and my favorite chair in front of my TV, and a spot of light shot out from behind me and blossomed there.

And there I sat, slack faced and slouched with my feet on a chair, my eyes glued to the tube as if something played there.

"I figure it happened sometime yesterday night," Jeb said behind me and let his flashlight's beam drop to pool on the carpet between us. "Something in the air. Maybe in the water. But it killed us all dead."

"But I'm here. You're here."

"The others are gone," he said. "For most of them it didn't take long to realize they were dead."

"What about..."

"Me?" He smiled. "I waited for you. I tried to tell you, but as long as the TV was on you just couldn't hear me. You just tuned me out. When they turned the power off, I knew sooner or later you'd wander out."

He turned toward the door.

"Are you ready to go?" He asked. I turned off the television and followed him out.

The Wishing Ring (1982)

Princess Jaimie was playing dress-up.

She searched her mother's closet and pulled down the prettiest of the silvery fine gowns. She put it on over her play clothes and strapped on a pair of her mother's delicate silver sandals. Then she crossed the room to look at herself in her mother's tall oval mirror.

Though her long, silken hair was as frosty white as the full light of a winter moon - just like her mother's - and her eyes were as blue, the face and figure that looked out at Princess Jaimie from the mirror's bright surface was still a little girl all dressed up in a gown that bagged over her slim shoulders and pale arms and gathered about her feet like a gossamer puddle.

Jaimie sighed and frowned and fidgeted with the dress, trying to fit the shimmering cloth to her slender body so that she would at least look a little bit like her mother when she wore the gown to royal feasts and fancy functions. But for all that Princess Jaimie pulled the material this way and that, its form was designed for a figure with more curve and less line.

Her mother's Wishing Ring would help, she decided, and cast a quick look across her mother's bedroom to the dressing table. Of course, The Wishing Ring. The Wishing Ring would make her look the way she wanted to look. All she needed to do was hold the Ring and wish for what she wanted real hard and it would come true. The Ring would make her look like the princess she wanted to be, like the queen her mother was.

Jaimie gathered up the long skirts and crossed to the dressing table. She climbed up on the red velvet stool and reached for the blue satin box. She tried to lift the lid, but it was locked.

Oh, well, she sighed, it was just an idea. It was probably just as well that she couldn't get to it. Her mother cherished The Wishing Ring more than all the other pieces of jewelry in the box, and probably would have been very angry if she had found Princess Jaimie playing with it. Never mind. There were many other wonderful things here on the table to capture her attention.

There were bottles of graceful glass with colored liquid inside that smelled of all the flowers in her mother's garden. Jaimie picked up the green one and pulled off the cap to sniff a nose full of evergreen. She poured a little pool into the palm of her hand and set the bottle aside so she could rub the perfume between her hands and wipe it on her arms and neck. Now she smelled like a winter forest, crisp and clean, and that pleased her.

Also on the table was a cut crystal cup of silver cream that she recognized. All the ladies of the court wore it to make their eyes shine bright and shimmery like the fabric of her borrowed gown. Princess Jaimie scooped her finger through it and giggled as the cream began to glow on her warm finger. Excited, she smeared some of it over each eye and blinked hard to squish it all over her eyelids. It did make her eyes shine! She liked that, and looked through the other things on her mother's dressing table.

There was a blue powder in a chased silver dish that sparkled like star dust and smelled as sweet as winter roses. her mother, she knew, wore this in her hair to make it pretty, so Princess Jaimie picked up the little dish and poured a little on her head. But it all came out at once and cascaded down her white hair in shiny blue streaks that fell to her shoulders and streaked down her pretty silver gown.

She tried to catch it in her hands and scoop it back into its dish, but each movement shook it around and down until it covered her from head to toe and sprinkled on the floor. She brushed at it to get it off the red velvet cushion but it was as stubborn as glitter and wouldn't be swept away. Well, never mind. The maid would take care of it when she came in to make up her mother's bed.

Princess Jaimie sat down on her knees again and looked at herself in the mirror. She turned her head this way and that and decided the sparkles and cream really didn't look bad at all. She reached for the gold tube of lipstick that would make her lips as red as cherries. She picked it up, and was surprised to find behind it the silver key that would open her mother's jewelry box.

Excited by her discovery, Princess Jaimie dropped the lipstick and grabbed up the key. She held it tight and looked quickly over her shoulder to be sure her mother wasn't near. Her mother had never said she couldn't wear The Wishing Ring, Princess Jaimie thought, knowing deep inside that The Wishing Ring was not a toy. But she'd only use it for a little while. Just long enough to make her look like a real princess and not a little girl playing dress-up. She'd put it right back when she was done, she promised, and stood up on the velvet stool to reach her mother's jewelry box.

She pulled the box forward, spilling the many little perfume bottles out of the way, and fit the key into place. The key clicked and the lid sprang back with a musical chime and all her mother's jewels lay there, shining green and blue, white and red. Emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, rubies. Rings and bracelets, necklaces and chains, all sparkling bright and beautiful. But most beautiful of all was The Wishing Ring, set above them all on a little silk pillow of pale blue.

The Wishing Ring was slender and fine and all colors at once and many more besides. It glowed like a bit of fire, and glinted like ice, and Princess Jaimie picked it up with eager fingers that sparkled with silver cream and blue powder. The Ring slipped easily over the middle finger of her right hand and she clenched her fingers around it, hugging it to her tightly as she wished her wish, the wish she knew would come true. She closed her eyes real tight and wished with all her might, and knew when it was done by the warm way it made her feel.

Princess Jaimie opened her eyes and looked in the dressing table mirror.

Her white hair no longer fell down her shoulders like a tangled mane. It was piled high atop her head in ringlets studded with silver pearls. The blue powder glittered gently in the hollow of each curve of each ringlet, like little slices of a blue moon. Her blue eyes looked bigger and were painted with little swirls of silver and color that made her eyebrows arch up like little butterfly wings. Her lips, too, were colored, and gleamed as red as cherries and tasted sweet, too. And when she turned her head, little ruby stars glittered in her ears.

Princess Jaimie stood up and the gown no longer reached to the floor in a tangle of gossamer cloth. It swirled out around her like a silver mist and the too-big silver sandals just fit. She wore rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists, and a big diamond necklace hung from her neck. She was beautiful and pretty and she turned from side to side to show herself how everything fit her as perfectly as they had fit her mother.

I look like a princess now, she thought and jumped down from the stool. She looked fine and all grown up, and she giggled to herself and curtsied, The Wishing Ring still tightly held in her hand. She looked at the ring, shining so bright in her hand. She had to show her friends, she decided. Yes, everyone had to see her like this.

Princess Jaimie returned to the dressing table to put The Wishing Ring away before she went outside, but just as soon as she climbed up on the stool and took the ring off her finger, the illusion of beauty disappeared and she looked like she did before.

Disappointed, Jaimie pouted. It was gone. No one would see how beautiful she was. Her friends would never know what a wonderful princess she really was. Or would they?

Princess Jaimie put The Wishing Ring on her finger again, and the illusion instantly returned, blushing her cheeks with the years she had yet to grow into, and Princess Jaimie smiled.

Of course. The Wishing Ring had the power. She had to be holding The Wishing Ring to maintain her beauty. Now her friends would see her. Well, maybe.

Princess Jaimie lost her smile at the thought of taking her mother's Wishing Ring outside. Her mother would be angry if she ever found out. She won't find out, the image in the mirror promised. You'll go out and show your friends real quick. Then you'll put it back, and your mother will never know.

Princess Jaimie smiled back at the beautiful princess in the mirror and nodded. Yes, I'll be right back. I'll just show my friends and then bring it right back.

She jumped down from the stool and ran from her mother's bedroom to show all her friends what a little magic could do.

Princess Jaimie played with her friends all that afternoon. They played and did not notice the doubling of the guards on the castle's walls. They didn't see the tight worried faces of the men as they looked westward, and waited. Nor did they notice when they were playing hide and seek just Princess Jaimie stopped looking like a real princess and became a giggling little girl again. Even Jaimie forgot how elegant she should have looked under the spell of The Wishing Ring, and didn't think it strange when her nanny called her inside and clucked and fussed over the dirt on Princess Jaimie's borrowed dress.

"When your mother's seen what you've done, she'll give you what you deserve, little miss thief," Nanny scolded, and pulled the gown off over Jaimie's head. "You'll not be taking anything from anyone again that isn't your own."

She pointed to the bathtub filled with warm scented water and Princess Jaimie stepped in and settle down. Nanny roughly washed all the blue sparkles from Princess Jaimie's white hair and sponged the silver smears off her eyelids. Then she briskly pulled her out of the tub and rubbed her down with a thick warm towel.

"In the morning your mother will be told what you've done, and you'll pay the price for your playing," Nanny said, and helped her into her nightgown and sat her down in front of the fireplace. While Princess Jaimie ate her supper, Nanny brushed out her wet hair and braided it. She tugged on the braid when she was done and stood.

"Finish up, little miss," Nanny said as she folded down the coverlet on the bed. "Hurry up and get to bed."

Princess Jaimie obeyed and climbed into bed. Nanny kissed her good night, and left her alone to sleep and think.

But Princess Jaimie didn't think. She lay in bed and dreamed about this wonderful day. She had looked like a princess. Everyone had said so, and for the first time in her life she had actually felt like one. And one day she would be a Queen! Jaimie smiled to herself and snuggled down under the warm covers and felt for The Wishing Ring on her finger, all ready to will up a wish that it could be like this always and forever. But her searching fingers found only skin where The Wishing Ring had been. The Wishing Ring was gone!

Princess Jaimie sat up in bed and frantically searched under the bed covers, then jumped out of bed and searched all over the room. She even looked in the empty bathtub, but The Wishing Ring was nowhere to be found. The Wishing Ring was lost.

Oh, no! What would she tell her mother? I must find The Wishing Ring!

Princess Jaimie pulled on her robe and her slippers and slipped out of her bedroom to search the garden where she had played all afternoon. She passed silently behind the honor guards standing at the head of the stairs and slipped out the garden door.

The garden was dark. All the familiar hiding places and secret little nooks were as black and frightening as wild wolf caves. The trees leaned toward her with thin, scratchy fingers and cold, empty bones. Leaves whispered around her, telling secrets, telling lies, and Princess Jaimie edged around them cautiously. She dropped to her knees and crawled into a tunnel between two flowering bushes that looked dangerous in the night. The ground was moist and clung darkly to her hands as she crawled and searched. Behind her something rattled through the branches and she whirled as that something leapt out at her and over her to land on the dark branch of another tree. It was just a squirrel.

Just a squirrel, but it could have been anything, anything at all, and she hugged herself and turned quickly to look around, but nothing moved but the clouds over the moon.

Princess Jaimie circled the dark garden, searching all the places where she had played.

Had she lost The Wishing Ring here, by the roses where she had held court and all her friends had bowed down to her? Or had she lost it by the stream where she had sipped cold water as it spilled over the rocks into her hand. If she had dropped it there it could be on its way to the sea, or down deep between the rocks where it could never be seen.

She sat beside the stream and began to cry.

That was it, then. The Wishing Ring was gone. The Wishing Ring was lost. She couldn't find The Wishing Ring and The Wishing Ring must be found. But it was too dark to find a little thing that glittered all colors in the light and no colors at night. Oh, what was she to do? What could she do?

She'd better go tell her mother. That was the best thing for her to do.

But it was not the easiest thing for her to do. Her mother would be angry. A gown soiled and torn; silver sandals smeared with mud; powders and creams used without permission: these her mother might forgive with a scold and a flashing of blue eyes, but the taking of The Wishing Ring, and the losing of it, no, her mother would never forgive her for that. Not ever, never, ever.

Princess Jaimie cried until she used up all her tears, and knew there was only one thing she could do. She must tell her mother.

Rising from beside the stream, she brushed the grass from her night gown and crossed the dark garden to her mother's room. Her mother was there in the well-lit room, but she was not alone. She sat beside the fireplace, staring deeply into the flames. Her chief counselor was there, with the Captain of the Castle Guard, both watching her with silent eyes and stern faces.

Princess Jaimie liked Lord Stephen, her mother's oldest counselor. He was a gentle man with grey eyes and grey hair and a little pot belly that looked like a little round pillow under his robes. He always spoke softly, even when others cried out in anger or shouted. He was a good friend.

The other man, however, was tall and fierce. His name was Talon and he always wore his Falcon Helm of Command so that only his sharp black eyes and pointed black beard showed out between the curved cheek-guards of dark metal. He frightened Princess Jaimie, but her mother trusted him, and that was enough for Princess Jaimie to know.

Her mother looked up from the fire and stared at the two men.

"He comes," she said softly. "He comes to us himself."

Talon's hands clenched into fists at his side, making his leather gloves stretch and squeak over his knuckles. Lord Stephen looked tired.

"We cannot stop him," the counselor said.

"We are not lost yet, old friend," her mother said. "I have The Ring of Light, and by its power, we may yet stand free of His domination."

Her mother stood graceful and tall and her gown shimmered around her like mist and frost as she crossed the room to her jewelry box. The mess Princess Jaimie had made earlier in the day had been cleaned up by the maid and everything had been set back in its place. Her mother opened her jewelry box with her little silver key, lifted the lid, and stared down into the box. She touched aside some of her jewels, glinted in the box, then closed the lid and looked at her friends.

"The Ring of Light is gone," she said quietly.

"Lord of Light," the counselor said and sat heavily in the empty seat by the fire. "Could His agents have breached our walls and taken our only hope?"

"No, that's not possible," Talon said sharply. He crossed to the Queen's side to look into the box himself. "None of His scum could pass my guards undetected."

"Yet, the ring is gone," her mother said. She sat down on the red velvet stool and touched at the bottles and dishes atop the dressing table, searching for The Ring of Light, yet knowing it would not be there.

"With The Ring of Light gone, our chances are gone," Lord Stephen said. "He will come and He will tear down our walls. He will kill us all."

"We will die fighting," Talon snapped and grabbed the hilt of his sword, as if to draw it. "He shall not take us without a fight."

Her mother covered Talon's hand and held his grip down so that he could not draw his weapon.

"No. The sword is not the way. Not this time," she said. "He shall arrive by the morrow, but we have this night. I command this castle to be abandoned. Let us take our people away, through the night and across the land to a place of safety until we can recover The Ring of Light."

"Flee from our homes?" Talon shook his head fiercely. "No, my Queen. I shall not send my men from the walls. This is our home. I will not give it to such evil as He who comes. Not without a fight."

"Your time to fight Him will come, I promise you, Talon, but on this night you will obey and stand by me. You will guard my people as we flee for our lives."

"My Queen, this does not sit well with me," Talon said harshly.

"Nor with me," she agreed quickly. "But this is what we must do. Do you agree, Stephen?"

"Lady, it shall be done," the old counselor said and pushed himself out of the tall chair. "I shall see to it. Come, Talon. We have plans to make, and too little time to make them."

"Aye to that," Talon said and bowed to the Queen. "We obey, my Lady."

They left her mother alone in her room, and Princess Jaimie, standing in the shadow by the open garden door, hugged herself in fear, and took the first step toward telling her mother the truth.

"Mother?"

Her mother's head turned to her in surprise, startled by her daughter's sudden appearance.

"Jaimie, dear, what are you doing out of bed? Are you ill?" She crossed to Princess Jaimie and touched her forehead with a long, cool hand. "You don't feel fevered."

"I am not sick, mother," Princess Jaimie said, and trembled.

"You're chilled," her mother said and frowned. "Come to the fire. Come."

She led her daughter to the fireplace and sat her down in the tall chair. She rubbed her small, child hands with her graceful woman hands and touched her forehead again.

"What brings you out into the night, Jaimie? What is wrong?"

Jaimie couldn't look at her mother's face, and couldn't keep her terrible secret to herself a moment more.

"I took The Wishing Ring! I took The Wishing Ring!" She cried and spilled out her fears and tears in gasps between breaths. "It's my fault we're in danger. I was playing. I didn't mean to lose it. I didn't know. Everyone will die and it will be my fault!" She cried and her mother shook her sharply.

"Jaimie, stop that. Stop that! Look at me!"

Princess Jaimie lifted her face, wet with tears and flushed with her fears and her mother hugged her tightly.

"No one is going to die. We will all be all right," she promised and kissed her daughter's wet cheeks. "Now, Jaimie, you must tell me where you think you lost The Ring of Light. Where were you playing?"

"I was playing in the garden with Luke and Regina and Mark. But I already looked there. I couldn't find it."

"We'll find it," her mother said and stood. She crossed to the main door and opened it wide. The two guards that always stayed near, ready to protect and to serve, turned to face her, awaiting her command. Princess Jaimie curled up in a ball in the big chair by the fire, terrified that her mother was calling in the guard to take her away, to punish her as Nanny had said.

Would she sent her to the dungeon or far, far away? Would she punish her this way?

"Tell Captain Talon to meet me in my garden with men and lights. Tell him to come at once," her mother said and nodded in return to the one guard's salute. She turned back to Princess Jaimie.  "You must show me where in the garden you were playing. You must show me now."

Her mother pulled a white fur wrap from out of her closet and laid it about Princess Jaimie's shoulders. Then together they went out into the dark, chilly garden. Princess Jaimie showed her the place among the roses, and the stream that gurgled in the dark like a slender strand of light-touched black satin. Talon came with torches and men and her mother quickly told them what PrincessJaimie had done and what they must do. The searched both places, and others beside, covering the garden carefully until all the places Jaimie had been that day were sought out and searched, but The Wishing Ring was not to be found.

"I don't know where it could be!" Princess Jaimie cried and burst into tears again. "I don't know where it is."

"Could one of your friends have found it, Princess?" Talon asked. "Could one of them have taken it. We must rouse them, my Queen," he said.

"Yes, send men at once, but do not frighten them," She commanded and reached for her daughter's hand. "Come with me, Jaimie. This night is not good for you."

Princess Jaimie slipped her small hand into her mother's and walked with her back to her mother's bedroom. There, between the large oval mirror and the dressing table, her mother gathered her up in her arms and tucked her into the big silken bed.

"Don't fret now, Jaimie," she said. "We will find the Ring of Light."

"And if we don't?"

"We'll find it," her mother promised and blew out the candle by the bed. "Now sleep and don't worry."

Princess Jaimie watched her mother cross to the garden door. Beyond her, the light from the searchers' torches bobbed up and down among the roses and the flowering trees like fat fireflies. Her mother joined the searchers and Princess Jaimie pulled the covers high over her head and closed her eyes. She tried to sleep, but couldn't. She kept thinking about where she could have lost The Wishing Ring. Where it could have fallen from her finger. What was going to happen now? She wondered.

"My Queen," Talon said by the garden door, and Jaimie heard the rustling of her mother's skirts. "None of the children remember seeing the Ring of Light. It must still be in the garden."

"Leave these men her to continue to search," she said. "You go and finish what you began. We must still make plans to leave the castle before dawn."

"My Queen, is there no other way?"

"He is coming, Talon. He is coming to take what he wants, and we have not the power to stand against him. Make ready. I will continue the search."

Jaimie curled herself into a tight ball beneath the covers of the big bed and shivered though she was not cold.

He was coming.

No one had spoken His name aloud this night, but Princess Jaimie knew who they meant. She knew His name. Everyone knew His name, but no one ever spoke it. Names were power, and the speaking of names invokes the power. His name was an evil name and His power was an evil power, so no one spoke His name aloud. No one spoke it, but it was true. He was coming. He was coming back to break down the walls that encircled her home. He was coming to burn down the home she had known all her life. He was coming to kill them all.

No! No, that would not happen. It could not happen. Her mother and the guardsmen would find The Wishing Ring. They would find it and she would be forgiven, and The Wishing Ring would keep them safe from Him.

She would be safe, and she would be forgiven and all would be well, and with these thoughts in her head, Princess Jaimie finally found sleep.

It was still dark when Nanny came and shook Princess Jaimie awake and told her to get dressed. Princess Jaimie sat up quickly and looked to the garden, dark and empty beyond the tall windows.

"Did they find The Wishing Ring?" She asked eagerly, and looked at Nanny hopefully.

"The ring?" Nanny turned from lighting the lamps and blew out the candle she held. "I know nothing of a ring. Hurry now, get up and get dressed. The carriage is waiting."

"What carriage?"

"Didn't your mother tell you last night? You're going on a journey."

"You mean everyone is leaving the castle because He is coming," Jaimie said and reached for her clothes.

"Lord of Light, whoever would tell you such a thing?" Nanny demanded.

"Captain Talon. Counselor Stephen. And my mother. I heard them talking."

"Well, never you mind what they said. Just get dressed and be quick about it. It's almost dawn," Nanny said and left Princess Jaimie alone.

Dawn. He would soon be here and The Wishing Ring was still missing. There wasn't much time.

Princess Jaimie dressed quickly and slipped out into the dark garden. The sky was changing. The stars were fading and the black was not so deep, not so dark as it had been. Nor was the garden as quiet as it had been. From beyond the enclosing walls came all the noise of a castle in confusion and fear. They knew He was coming, and were just as frightened as she was.

Princess Jaimie hugged herself against the cold and her fear and began her search all over again. The bushes and the trees changed shape and color as she poked and prodded into places that had been poked and prodded into many times during the night. Flowers had been crushed. The grass had been trampled and the soft earth packed down hard in places that had hardly ever been touched by footsteps. The garden looked as worn out and abused as the dress Princess Jaimie had worn the day before. But Princess Jaimie didn't give up. She looked and looked until the sun came up and painted the treetops gold. Nanny came then, looking for her, calling her name, but Princess Jaimie ducked down behind a bush and waited for Nanny to give up and leave. When she did, Jaimie continued to look for The Wishing Ring. She wasn't going to leave without it. She was going to find it.

The noise beyond the garden wall quieted and a chill, empty silence took its place. For the first time, the castle felt old and huge. There was no laughter. No talk. Nothing.

Even the birds that came to sing in the garden were still as the sun's light streamed down over the garden wall. Princess Jaimie listened hard, but could hear nothing but the stirring of the leaves above her and around her as she searched beneath a rose bush. The castle was dead, she thought and shivered. Because of her, the castle was dead.

Princess Jaimie choked back a cry, and froze as the sun slanted down over the wall and sparked a glitter of light and color like no other sparkled right next to her hand. It was The Wishing Ring!

She snatched it up and held it tight. She'd found it! She'd found it!

She pushed herself to her feet and hurried across the garden to her mother's bedroom, but her mother wasn't there. Where was she? Princess Jaimie wondered and ran out of the room to find her.

The castle was as empty as it sounded. The rooms she passed were silent and littered with belongings left behind. The main hall was hollow and huge without people to fill its vast corners with laughter and talk. Even the courtyard was empty when she burst out the main door. The great doors were closed and barred, a thing she had never seen done. Always the gates had stood open, welcoming anyone to come out of the night, to share the heart and home of her people. And they were closed as tight as possible and the walls were lined with warriors, waiting and watching the valley beyond. And with them was her mother, standing slim and silent among the armored men.

Princess Jaimie climbed the stairs to the high walkway at the top of the wall and looked out over the green valley, and saw the glint of metal as His army filled the space between the groves of trees. Like a dark cloud, a shadow across the land, His army stretched in front of her home, and at its head, He sat astride His black horse and laughed at her mother.

"I take what I want, Lady," He said. "And I want what you have."

"Leave us alone!" Princess Jaimie screamed and all eyes turned to her standing on the wall with The Wishing Ring like a star in her hands. "Go away! Go away and leave us alone!"

Princess Jaimie wished with all her might, but this time her wish was not one of illusion, the temporary changing of her appearance from that of an awkward little girl to a beautiful young princess. This time she was wishing five thousand men as far away as her imagination could conceive. She wished it and willed it, but she was still a little girl.

"You let children guard your walls, Lady Queen?" He laughed. "You make this too easy for me!"

Her mother ignored Him and hurried along the wall to her daughter's side.

"Jaimie."

Princess Jaime opened her eyes and saw the army still watching below, laughing at her.

"Why doesn't He go away? Why can't I send them away?" She cried and turned to her mother. "I found The Wishing Ring. I wished really hard. Why don't they go away?"

Her mother answered her by putting her arms around her, holding her tight and covering her hands so that they both held The Ring of Light.

"Wish with me, Jaimie," she said. "Wish hard."

And Princess Jaimie did. With all her fear and all her heart, she wished.

"Ring of Light, Lord of Light, Thy Brethren are gathered, kin and kind, to protect this place from those not thine," her mother whispered in her ear, and wished, and Jaimie felt the surge of warm power rise from The Ring of Light and fill them both. "Let Thy Light shine bright upon these creatures of the Night. Let them know the power and the might of Thy presence."

The Ring of Light ceased to be a ring. It became a star, a small sun, a burning ball of light that rose from out of their cupped hands and hovered above the wall, growing and glowing with brilliance that filled Princess Jaimie's eyes, but did not burn. She thought she heard a voice, rumbling deep in her bones and in the stones of the wall, but the words spoken meant nothing to her ears. Only the Light was real and the feel of her mother's arms holding her warmly from behind. The Light grew until there was nothing else - no wall, no sky, no valley. Only the Light lived and was real around her.

And then it was gone, with a flicker like that of a candle flame snatched out by the wind, and all that remained was the wall and the sky and the valley beyond. He and His army was gone. And so was the Ring of Light.

Princess Jaimie turned around in her mother's arms and her mother lifted her and held her in a tight hug.

"Where have they gone?" Princess  Jaimie asked.

"The Light has taken them," her mother said, and looked out across the empty valley. "Your 'Wishing Ring' was a gift given long ago to be used on such a day as this, against such a power of Kavka."

"You spoke his name," Jaimie said in surprise. Her mother laughed.

"He is no longer a power to be feared," she said and looked to Captain Talon. "You may send for our people. The danger is over. Kavka is no more."

"Aye, my Queen," Talon saluted and turned to obey.

"Kavka is no more," Lord Stephen said and looked out across the valley. "And so easily it could have been us to be destroyed." He looked directly at Princess Jaimie. She ducked her head guiltily, wanted to hide, but her mother hugged her.

"The Ring of Light was found in time, Stephen," her mother said.

"I shouldn't have taken it," Jaimie admitted weakly.

"You were wrong to take what was not yours," her mother agreed.

"I won't do it again, I promise," she cried and hugged her mother tightly. "I'm sorry."

Her mother kissed her cheek and set her down.

"I know you're sorry. I know you won't do it again. But that's not enough," she said, and Princess Jaimie looked at her mother bravely, knowing it was time for her to be punished. "Hold out your hands."

Jaimie obeyed, though her hands trembled. She flinched as her mother touched them, and then she stared at them, for on her palm was the Wishing Ring, whole and beautiful with all its bright colors.

"From this day forward, the Ring of Light is yours. You must keep it safe from harm for the day that will come, as this day came. It is for you to protect us on that day. Can you do that?"

"I don't want it! I'll lose it again!" Jaimie cried and held The Wishing Ring out to her mother.

"If you do lose it, then our people will die, as they almost did this day. But you won't let that happen. I know you won't let that happen," she said. "Now, put The Ring of Light on your finger, and we will go together to welcome our people home."

The Joust (1984)

Clad in the white enamel and gold armor of a Knight of the Holy Word, Sir Talvad Hasteen reined his white stallion onto the wide field of combat before the Warlock Lord's pavilion and rode toward the great Lord of Darkness himself. He ignored the Guardsmen flanking the Lord as they laid ready hands on their swords. He ignored everything but the dark lord in gleaming black and red, regally seated upon a black throne atop the dais.

At any other time the oath Talvad had sworn two years ago would have compelled him to kill this man and any of his followers on sight, but not this day, for this was the Eve of All Souls, All Hallows Eve, the night his God was most powerful, protecting him as he approached the Warlock Lord to make his challenge for combat with one of the Lord's darkling souls.

Halting his white stallion before the great red and black pavilion, Talvad crossed his hands on the pommel of his white saddle and respectfully half-bowed to the long, lean man who was the most powerful of all the Warlocks. The Court Herald, a twisted little man in black, stepped forward and down the steps to interpose himself between the young knight and his master.

"For what have you come here armored for battle, young knight?" The Herald asked.

Talvad ignored the Herald and kept his eyes on the Warlock Lord. "I have come to claim the Right of Challenger against an enemy I have long sought," Talvad announced.

"Do you stand before us as the Champion of the Knights of the Holy Word?" The Herald queried, falling easily into the ancient ritual of formal challenge that was older than the era of Warlock Lords and the Knighthood of the Holy Word.

Talvad shook his head. "The shield I bear upon my arm this day is not the emblem of my Order," he replied. "lt is my family crest."

And indeed, the crest was not of the Cross of the Seven Saints, but of a shiny silver eagle, the emblem of the Hasteen family, highest among the Seven Families following the teachings of the Sacred Creed.

"A personal conflict?" The Herald queried, and glanced at his master for direction. The Warlock Lord made no move or sound, but the Herald nodded as if words passed between them. The Herald faced Talvad again.

"Your request is honored," he said. "State your challenge."

Talvad solemnly removed the heavy, metal studded gauntlet from his right hand and held it high for all to see.

"Spoken before all assembled here and before God Almighty," he shouted. "I, Talvad Hasteen, duly consecrated a Knight of The Holy Word, do stand and demand justice upon a Field of Honorable Battle for an unjust deed done to the kith and kin of Hasteen."

Talvad expected the surprised rush of whispers from the Warlocks and their human allies as they learned why he, their sworn enemy, would intrude upon their dark celebration, but he did not expect the laughter that swept around him, jeering him. It insulted his pride and angered him, which amused the Warlock Lord. The Lord raised a slender, black gloved hand to silence the crowd and the Herald continued to play his part in this unexpected game.

"State your grievance," the Herald demanded. "And name your opponent."

"I have come to avenge the brutal and unjust murder of the most virtuous and much lamented Lady, Lynaya Hasteen," he announced and glared about himself, as if to challenge anyone to laugh at these words. No one laughed. He looked back at the Warlock Lord and cast his Gauntlet of Challenge down on the steps before his dais. "I have come for your illustrious and heroic Champion, the one you call Guardian, who is in truth Talvana Hasteen, my sister."

The gathered courtiers responded now not with scattered laughter, but open surprise. The Warlock Lord leaned forward, interested. He dismissed his Herald with an off handed wave of a black clad hand and spoke directly to Talvad himself.

"Why do you believe my Champion is responsible for this murder?" He asked quietly.

"We were twelve years old when Talvana took our mother's life," Talvad replied steadily, chilled by the low, inhuman softness of the Warlock Lord's voice and his direct attention. "I saw the deed done and I have not forgotten it."

"Bitter is your anger, boy," the Warlock Lord said. "But beware, as a Knight of the Holy Word, your errand must always be justice. Not vengeance."

"Vengeance is my right by blood and by law!" Talvad declared hotly.

"But 'vengeance is mine,' so said your own Lord, and you are sworn to His Word," the Warlock Lord warned heavily. "Remember that, boy. If you do nothing else in your life, remember to whom you have sworn your oath and pledge, and stand true to it."

Before Talvad could form a reply to this warning, the Warlock Lord turned and gestured to someone standing behind him. "What say you to the charges spoken here against you, my Champion? Has this young knight spoken true? Is he your brother, and are you a murderer?"

Like a shadow herself, Talvana Hasteen stepped forward from the shadows at the back of the pavilion and took her place behind the Warlock Lord's throne, the gleam of her black and red armor an affront to her brother as she stared at him without expression.

Born at one birthing, Talvad and Talvana were as true a reflection of one another as day is a reflection of night. With his long white cloak flapping out behind him like angry wings and his long blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight, Talvad looked a young god, but he was no god. He was only a son dedicated to one, as she was dedicated to this imfamous man of black magic and stood in his shadow like a shadow with hair and eyes as black as night.

Everything about them was in direct conflict, their appearance, their sex, their very natures, and this made it inevitable that they would one day face each other in this way.

"It has been a long time, brother," she said quietly.

"Fifteen years," Talvad said coldly.

"Yes," Talvana acknowledged simply and said no more.

Well, and what had he expected? For her to cry out a blustery denial? A guilty confession? A sobbing plea for mercy? Or to simply stand there, untouched by his charge, as she had been untouched by their mother's death?

"Your brother has charged you with matricide," the Warlock Lord prompted. "What say you, my Champion?"

What could she say, to her master, to Talvad? How could she tell Talvad that the knife she had used to kill their mother had been their mother's own and meant for Talvad's chest? How do you tell a son his mother meant him as a sacrifice to the Unseen? Talvana wondered bitterly how she could say now what she could not say for the past fifteen years. There was simply no way to tell him the truth. Not here. Not now. Yet, the Warlock Lord expected an answer from her, and she must make one. She looked at her master and said: "I neither acknowledge Sir Talvad's charge as true or as false, my lord."

"No hand but yours dealt her death, sister!" Talvad cried harshly. "I will have justice for her. On my oath, I will have justice!"

Justice? Talvana almost laughed in contempt at her brother's naivety. There was no justice, not for those touched by the Unseen. If there was justice in the world, their own mother would not have committed her soul to the Unseen in an unholy bargain for personal power; their own mother would not have tried to kill her own son to pay the price she owned for that power; their own mother would not have cursed her own daughter with her dying breath for interfering in her plans for power; condemning her to live out her life as a spirit held woman serving a spirit held Lord. No, facing her brother, who knew nothing at all of the truth of his own past or of what he truly faced in her or her master, Talvana knew there was no such thing as justice.

"You stand challenged, sister," Talvad glowered. "As an 'honorable' knight, you are obliged to answer it. Or have you forsaken your honor as you did your vows to God?"

Talvana stared hard at her brother, unable to answer. She could not refuse the challenge, given as it was before her own Lord, knight to knight. She could not refuse, yet to accept it would be her brother's death, or worse, if Talvad won the match and killed her out of revenge rather than justice. If his soul was committed to justice, the Unseen spirit in her soul would have no where to go, but if he soul was committed to vengeance, the Unseen spirit in her would not hesitate to spring from her with her dying breath to fill Talvad, making his life the living hell she had endured the past fifteen years.

"I do not accept your accusation as a valid challenge," Talvana said, and sprang forward as quick as a startled cat with her sword bared to protect the Warlock Lord as Talvad spurred his stallion up the dais steps in outrage, his own sword drawn in anger.

"Your cowardice knows no bounds!" He cried and brought his sword down to meet her blade. But steel did not strike steel as the Warlock Lord pushed himself to his feet and thrust out his hand, and his power.

"HOLD!" He shouted, and the young Knight cried out as the Warlock Lord's will gripped him and froze him in the saddle. With an angry toss of its head, his horse half reared and stepped back, back again, until it stood where it had a moment before.

Until that moment, Talvad had not truly believed any of the stories told about this man and his deadly alliance with the Unseen. Until this moment he had not believed a human could sell his soul for power. But now, as he swallowed his fast beating heart back into his chest and wetted his suddenly dry lips, Talvad felt the truth of the Warlock Lord's power, and believed.

"You overstep the bounds of your Challenge," the Warlock Lord reprimanded and pushed Talvana's sword aside with his arm. "Sheath your weapons, both of you."

Trembling, Talvad restored his sword to its sheath. Humbly, Talvana obeyed her master.

"Talvana, your brother's challenge is valid. Accept it, or be dishonored."

"My Lord...," Talvana began.

"Accept it, or be dishonored," the Warlock Lord repeated, and Talvana lowered her head, silenced, and resignedly stepped down to pick up her brother's gauntlet of challenge and heft it. Looking up at her brother with the cursed gauntlet in her hand, she knew she had no choice, no freedom, but to play this game out. She crossed to him and held the gauntlet up to his waiting hand.

"Your challenge is accepted, brother," she said. "May God have mercy on us both."

"May you die and burn in hell," he said, and she turned away without reply to meet the look of the Warlock Lord, his mind silent against her own, but his eyes alive with the light of speculation as he considered anew what she was and how he could use her to serve his own ends. Talvana bowed and withdrew to prepare herself for combat.

  

With the sun falling late into the day and casing shadows across the tournament field, Talvad took his white lance from his weapon bearer and stared off across the field to where his sister prepared to mount. His hand tightened on the shaft of his lance as the familiar tension of his hatred coursed through him at sight of her. Finally his quest across the years would reach its conclusion and justice would be done. His mother would be avenged. Her murderer would die.

Yet, even as he anticipated this long awaited moment and watched his sister arm herself and prepare to fight, Talvad's anger weavered and was disturbed by questions. Why had Talvana refused to confirm or deny his guilt or innocence? Why had she refused to accept the challenge? Did she fear to declare the truth of the matter before her lord and master? Why?

Angry that he could not answer these questions, Talvad banged the end of his lance into the dry ground and snapped shut his helmet's visor. He decided it didn't matter why Talvana had evaded the truth. It would not avail her this day, nor hide her from the death he held in his hand. Talvana would die, and justice, finally, would be done.

"Aim true and let's be gone from here," his squire said anxiously, and Talvad smiled without humor. He remembered the force of the Warlord's power on his body, confining him to obedience. He remembered it, but to face his sister and make her pay for what she had done, he would have demanded audience from the Lords of the Unseen themselves.

"I've not come to miss my mark, Squire," Talvad answered shortly, and kicked his stallion forward.

Beside the Warlock Lord's pavilion, Talvana noted her brother’s entrance upon the battle ground and mounted the warhorse her footman brought forward. It was a big black brute, one of the Warlock Lord's own, with fire in its eyes that was not entirely high spirits. It shook itself with a anxious snort as she settled into the saddle. It half reared as her own tension passed through her body into it and she firmly squeezed it under control with her armored thighs as she tugged her visor down. She caught the unmarked black shield tossed up to her and thrust her arm through its thongs. Then the lance came up and she fixed her free hand around it. Her horse stomped its foot anxiously, ducked its head in warning that it would not obey her tight rein much longer, and she nudged it forward onto the tournament field.

The onlookers, all loyal to the Warlock Lord, watched in morbid anticipation as the two huge horses, black and white, faced each other across the field of battle. The Herald, sitting his horse at midfield between them, saluted both knights with his sword, then raised it above his head. All eyes fastened on it as the sun's late light glinted off its sharp edge. lt flashed up against the blue sky, and hissed down in a shining silver arc. A cry went up from the crowd as the two great warhorses plunged forward with an explosive thrust of hard muscles and charged mightily across the field.

The thunder of their hooves shook the ground and air as they raced toward each other, their riders braced behind the streaking thrust of their lances. They met in the heart of the field, lance point to armor with a resounding clash that ripped a terrified gasp from the crowd as one horse cantered riderless from the field.

The Warlock Lord's Champion was down!

Breathlessly, Talvad wheeled his stallion around and cast away the broken haft of his lance, his heart thudding fast in his chest. He reined his mount toward Talvana's prone body, lying with his lance jutting out of her reddened breastplate.

Was she dead?

Talvad swung down from his stallion's back, surprised that it had been so easy. He hardly believed that she could be dead so soon. Not yet, he prayed, and drew his sword from the sheath at his hip. Don't let her be dead yet.

Sprawled on her back in the dirt, her face bleached and drawn with shock and pain, Talvana groaned and lifted her hand to her chest, feeling the lance shaft lodged there above her left breast, almost under her arm. Her left arm hung useless and dead in its sheath of armor. Talvad's squire and one of the Warlock Lord's footman ran to assist her from opposing ends of the field, but both held back as Talvad lifted his sword and advanced on his sister.

"Stand and fight," Talvad commanded.

Talvana grimaced and forced her body to rise against the weight of her armor and the pain in her chest. Gasping, she pushed herself to her knees, her hand gripping the broken haft of the lance. She gasped for breath and felt the Unseen spirit within her writhing as blood pumped warm over her hand.

Think not that you can flee, spirit. You are mine now and into death, she thought and tightened her grip on the lance, ready to twist it deeper into her body, to take her own life and the spirit with her. But she made a mistake. She looked up at her mounted brother with long-held love and her heart betrayed her.

"I take my life for the life I took," she said and steeled herself for death. But her words were not what Talvad wanted to hear and he heeled his mount around and thrust the flat of his blade in to flip her hand away from the broken haft of the lance.

"Stand and fight!" He demanded. "Or I swear I will cut you down unarmed. Your life and your death are mine! I swear it by all the gods that ever lived!"

"No!" Talvana cried, but too late. The words were spoken and the vow made, superceding all the others he had made in his life. Talvana groaned as the Unseen spirit within her body gathered itself in a whirlpool twist of power and wrenched itself from her body to launch itself out from her weakened soul into Talvad's rage filled soul. She grasped with all the might of her own dark will and history to hold it back, but it slipped through her hold and out of her being. Talvad stifled a surprised gasp of pain as the Unseen spirit slammed into him and took possession of his body and soul.

"NO!" Talvana screamed. She grasped his sword with her gauntleted hand and used it to pull herself up from her knees to her feet. "You shall not take this one as you took me!" She shouted and grabbed her brother to pull him from the saddle. Talvad roughly pushed her away, heeling his mount around, but she held on.

"Talvad, you must renounce it! You must fight it!" She cried, gripping him to take back what had abandoned her for him. Talvad freed her from his sword arm and smashed it’s hilt down on her wounded shoulder. She screamed and crumpled to at his horse’s nervously dancing feet. He reined the horse back from her as she struggled to stand again. He dismounted, slapped the rump of his mount so it cantered riderless across the field, and advanced toward her on foot.

"Draw your sword and die," he shouted at her as he faced her and swept the open space between them with his blade. Weakly, she pulled the lance point from her shoulder and tore the red sash from her waist to shove into the wound. She knew by the thick flow of blood she had little time left to her to fight her brother and take the Unseen spirit back into herself before she died. She didn’t know how, but she knew she must regain the Unseen spirit and take it with her through the gates of hell, or all she had sacrificed and suffered for her beloved brother these past fifteen years would be for nothing. Securing the wound as best she could, she regained her feet, drew her sword, and lifted it against him.

Sword to sword, night shade woman against sun lit man, one staggering, one striking, both fighting with relentless determination, to survive, to kill, to die, but with each strike made, with each blow received, it was clear Talvana was dying.

Shaking in the sweat and blood of her pain and weakness, Talvana knew she fought herself to the grave, and still knew not how to take the Unseen spirit with her. "Dear God of my fathers, help me!" Talvana cried in desperation, and packed the last of her life behind her sweeping sword, bringing it down to rip the blade from Talvad’s hands, but there was no help for her. Her sword came down and Talvad's was there to meet it with shattering force. Her sword was ripped from her grip and she collapsed to her knees, defeated. And Talvad stood over her, eclipsing the sun.

"I have waited fifteen long years for this, sister," he said and lifted his sword two handed, executioner-style. Talvana, kneeling with blood bright red on her chest and death pale white on her face, looked up at her brother.

"Talvad, do not forsake God and your vow to the Holy Word to satisfy your need for vengeance. Do you not feel what has come into you from my soul? It is the greatest evil, Talvad."

"How can you say this, sister, having lived as one Spirit held? This is not evil. This is power. True power, true freedom!" Talvana gasped in horror.

"You stand here as a Knight of The Holy Word? With a spirit of the Unseen within you, you can truly say this?" Talvana demanded and struggled to rise, but the strength was not in her. Powerless, she stared up at her brother. "I was Spirit held, Talvad, but never Spirit owned. I did not bargain away my soul to get it or call it to me of my own accord. I was cursed by it when mother died and it has been held as prisoner within me all these years--until you came with your high held hatred and need for vengeance, until you freed it by forsaking the Holy Word and swearing by the power of Unseen gods."

Talvad laughed at her, and she could not tell if the twisted laugh belonged to the young knight who had begun this fight or to the Unseen spirit now possessing his soul.

"What you say is true, sister," he said. "Truer still is the fact that I and the spirit are one in a way you never were. And this is the way it was always meant to be. All those years I thought I sought you to free myself of the pain I felt whenever I remembered our mother's death. But the pain was not in grief for her. It was for the loss of what she had offered me that night that you took away from me." He laughed and lifted his sword to cleave his sister's head from her neck. "I finally have what is mine," Talvad said joyously. "I am free at last, sister, free of my weakness and fear."

"Sweet God protect us!" Talvana cried out as she realized the sacrifices she had made and the suffering she had endured to protect her brother had been for nothing! She lunged at her brother as she pulled the dagger free from her sword’s belt and drove its point between the plates of armor at Talvad's groin. lt pierced through mail and flesh and the femeral artery in a bloody gush, ripping a scream from Talvad's throat. He swung his sword down on her armored back as she threw him off balance with her weight and grappled herself over his body as he fell. He struggled against her and weight of his own armor as she forced herself on top of him, her dagger going for his throat.

"Give it back to me, brother. Don't go to your death with it inside you."

“It’s mine!” He screamed and struggled against her, trying to break free. He slammed his arm into her wounded shoulder and leveraged her over and off of him. The universe turned with her and she lost her place in it as she put her last ounce of strength into her right arm and thrust the dagger forward. She felt it slide into flesh, and knew nothing else.

  

Waking in agony, Talvana thought she had passed beyond, but when she opened her eyes she knew she was still in the world. She stared up at morning sky, clear and empty, and knew the pavilion and the crowd were gone. The Warlock Lord, whose power had commanded her for so long , was gone, returned to his realm, bereft of the Champion he had called his own. His hold on her was gone. And she lay on the trampled field, alive and alone. Alone. For the first time in fifteen years, Talvana felt in her soul that she was truly alone. The Unseen spirit was gone.

Defying the pain in her body, she struggled upright to find her armor gone, her clothes changed to simple homespun shirt and trousers, her chest bandaged, her arm in a sling, and her body wrapped against the cold in the white cloak that had been her brother's own. And she was not alone. At a distance, beside the risen son, stood her brother's white stallion, and in it’s shadow, a undistinguished brown mare, and her brother's squire, kneeling beside a grave.

Pushing herself to her feet, she clutched the cloak to her and crossed to the man. She was startled when the white stallion interrupted its grazing to nuzzle her as she came near. She put her hand on his neck to steady herself and wonder at what she saw.

"Is he free, Lady?" The squire asked, without looking up at her. His hands were black with the earth of his master's grave. When she didn't answer, he looked up at her, beseechingly, across the grave.

"Tell me, Lady. Is he free?"

"I don't know," she said.

The Squire stared down at the fresh turned earth again, and came to some decision in his own mind. "If heaven is his, God will know," he said and stood stiffly to face her. "His horse is yours now, as am I."

"Is that what you want?"

"It has always been the way of my life to serve the Hasteen. I will serve you if you command it."

"I command no one," she said, "but I will take the horse. Do with your life as you will."

He said nothing more, but took her weight into his hands and helped her mount the stallion. It stood still beneath her as she swayed within a spinning world and willed herself to remain upright. When she was ready, she turned the stallion eastward with a touch of her heels. The squire called after her.

"You will not take word of your brother's death to your father?"

"If you feel the need to tell such news to the Hasteen, then do so. I ride east."

"You are free of the Unseen," the Squire said. "You are free to return home. Why do you ride toward the sun?"

"I have lived in darkness too long to ride anywhere else," she said and spurred off down the hill, into the sun, without looking back.

Night Rider (1975)

The fires had long since cooled in the kinhold's great hearths when the Lady Christiana rose from her bed and coaxed a little candle flame alive against the darkness of her bedroom. With movements almost ritualistic, she cupped her hand around the hot flicker of light and crossed to the tall oak wardrobe set against the far wall. She gathered up the voluminous folds of her nightgown and knelt on the dark blue rug in front of the single drawer. She reached beneath it in search of the little silver key, and brought it out. It was as small as a baby's spoon and glinted silver as she fitted it into the long drawer's slot and turned it. The lock clicked over, and she pulled the drawer open by the dolphin shaped silver handles.

The blue and yellow quilt she had made her first year in this kinhold lay on top, but it was not the reason why she kept this drawer under lock and key. Rather it was for what lay beneath the quilt: the heavy black cloak neatly folded beside a pair of shiny black riding boots, a shirt of black silk as soft and shimmery as the cloak's lining, and tailored trousers of warm black wool. And beneath these, the slender scabbard of brushed black suede with its chased silver sword.

She stroked the cloak, the silk, the wool, the suede, and thought how strange it would feel to wear trousers again and feel the weight of a sword on her hip. She shivered, partly with a foreboding fear, partly with excitement.

How many years had it been since last she wore these clothes? How many years had she been a dutiful wife, a caring mother, and respectable woman?

She had been wed to a home and a hearth and velvet skirts for almost twenty four years now. Twenty four years. Gone.

Gone, but not wasted, for all the years of Deirdra and Trelaine and Michael, the years of swaddling clothes, teething pains, toddling and romping, all had their value in her heart and memories. Not once, not ever had she allowed herself to regret the other life she could have lived, though she carried those early years as a Night Rider as closely guarded in her heart as she kept her uniform under key. Only now and again had she dared to bring out the cherished mementos of her wild youth to sustain her late at night when she sat with a fevered child asleep in her arms or awaited her husband's late return from the city. The remembered excitement, the remembered fear, the blur of nights and danger and riding hard with the wind in her hair, had always given her the strength to endure spit on her dresses and the dampness of diapers under her hands. And sometimes, for no reason, they had put a secret smile on her face that she could never explain to anyone but her husband, and she had been careful to hide it from him for he'd grown narrow with the years and no longer understood.

Nowadays riding the land for the King was not so glamorous as when she had ridden through the darkest of nights with a sword near her hand and a secret message preciously kept under her heart in a pouch of black leather. Nowadays the King's Messengers rode the highways at full sun in carriage of shiny black and stayed in the Inns along the way, never knowing what it was to pack all they owned in the hefty bags slung aback the saddle, and living off the land for the rest. Now the King was High King, as wily an old man as ever lived, but she remembered when he had been only the second son of the Chermaag King, the clever young man who had banded the land and the Warlords together with his mysterious Night Riders.

Was it really only twenty four years ago?

Twenty four, and twenty, forty four years of her life gone, and what did she have to look forward to? Her children were well under the care of their tutors or their father's noble relatives.

Her oldest daughter, Deidra, was as radiant a beauty as Lady Christiana had been at twenty, and she had no illusions when it came to her daughter's fate among the pompous lords and regal ladies who wore velvet even in the summer because velvet was so royal. But Deidra was clever and ambitious, and would do well. She already knew that her future would be secure if she married carefully, and often, preferably to older men of considerably rank who would die after a few years and leave her the widowed Duchess of this or the Grand Duchess of that. No, Lady Christiana had no illusions about her daughter.

Or about her oldest son, Trelaine. He was already a part of the High King's court, learning all the tricks of chivalry that would one day make him a knight. So proud of himself, so full of himself, he didn't bother coming home for the holidays anymore. He simply remained at the Academy with his new friends or visited their homes so he could impress their families and any unattached daughter of suitable rank who was at least as pretty as his sister.

Christiana loved Diedra and Trelaine enough to know she could never wish on them anything less than their hearts' desires, whether she approved of their desires or not, so she hid her disapproval and left them alone to the lives they had chosen. But this was not so with Michael. Michael was different. He was her last born child, her favorite of the three, and for him she wanted more.

When he was eight years old he had been too full of life to settle down into someone else's pace. Because he had shown no desire to become a page, the first step to becoming a squire, then a knight like his brother, Michael had been sent to the University at Brevedan to establish exactly what it was he wanted to be in life. Unfortunately he had made a terrible nuisance of himself there that resulted in his being sent home in shame.

But now, to her surprise as much as his own, Michael was the apprentice to the Wordsmith, a gruff old man with an unpronounceable name who sternly took him in hand and gave him the singularly unpleasant duty of digging through the kinhold's many cellars and storage rooms to find any and all manuscripts that might pertain to the family's heritage. Michael loved it.

Alone, surrounded by drafty old caverns, high hidden attics and rickety lofts, he rummaged and explored to his heart's delight. He poked into corners that hadn't been poked into by a young boy's avid curiosity for near on a century, and happily supplied the Wordsmith's scribes with crumbling bundles of yellowed paper. He had found his place in life.

But what of her life, now that her children were grown?

Her husband was gone taken down by fever and fluid filled lungs and she was free of the oath she had made to him as a love struck girl of twenty. Now she was free to do and be anything she wanted: be it to remain here in this sprawling kinhold with her title and her lands, or to ride the night again. If she wanted to.

And she wanted to, with a quiet need verging on desperation she wanted to ride the night again. Feeling the warmth of her desire rise, she lifted out her flowing cloak and hugged it in her lap. In her mind's eye she could see herself slipping out onto her balcony to avoid the guard dogs at the main hearth and the sentries at the door. She could almost smell the ivy on the trellis, could almost feel the ironwork and leaves beneath hands as she thought of climbing down to the gravel path that led out of her private garden.

There, in the dark of this night, she would use all the skills she had learned as a young Rider. She would move soundlessly away from the kinhold. It would stand strong and square against the sky like a man's broad shoulders. She would climb the outer wall and stand above the dark waters of the moat. The sentry would be there, strolling by with the jingle of light armor and chainmail as he made his rounds.

She would press herself against the dark wall and wait, wondering if his senses would be honed to the high alert necessary to know she was there. He would pass so close to her that it would be easy for him to smell the jasmine scent of her hair, the salt tang of her sweat seeping from her pores. If he dared hesitate, he would be able to reach out and touch her with his hand or his sword. Christiana tensed and held her warm cloak to her face at the thought of what he would do if he were to sense her there, but he would not. He would pass on unknowing and she would continue on.

With the fine wire rope she kept in an inner pocket of her cloak, she would silently lower herself down to the ground and seek out the horse Yathan always kept waiting in the grove beyond the gate. It wouldn't be the gentle grey mare her husband had given her. It would be a stallion as black as the moonless night surrounding it, and she would stroke him and talk to him until he knew her. Then with a strong vault, she would mount the black racing saddle and urge him well away from the walls, his whole body shivering under her own, quivering. He would skitter in a dance that would be the reflection of her own excitement. Then, when neither he nor she could stand another moment, she would dig her heels into his flanks and he would willing run.

Skimming the earth in pursuit of a dream, no wraith, no demon, no creature of dark death would ever ride as swift and thunderous through the night as she would upon that black horse. They would soar over hedges and canter against the wind, her cloak whipping long and black behind her through the night stillness.

Lady Christiana quivered with excitement at the thought of it and reached for her black silk blouse, eager and excited to be out in the night, living her dream at last. But as her hand touched the slippery silk, a soft tapping sounded at her door, and little Amanda's voice cried out, pitiful with need.

"Aunt Christie? Aunt Christie! My tummy hurts? Can I come to bed with you?"

Lady Christiana sighed and folded her cloak and neatly smoothed it into place in the bottom of the drawer and slid the drawer shut. She keyed the lock and put the key away. She stood stiffly, using the wardrobe for support, and smoothed down the rumpled fall of her nightgown. Then she crossed to the door, turned the large key in its lock and opened it just enough for a five year old bundle of love to slip inside and hug her skirts.

"I love you Aunt Christie," the little girl said, and Christiana lifted her up and hugged her and went back to bed.