Everafter Acres Read online

Bors finally broke a longish silence. “Odd, life with no monsters.”

  “Good riddance.” Calantha gazed from one predictable set of towers to another. “It’s my turn to give the next feast. Everyone will expect suckling pig. Such a bother.”

  “I’ll show up uninvited, and we can dance.”

  “You’re always invited everywhere, but you never show up. And I didn’t know you danced.”

  “I do, and not sedately. Expect to be whirled.”

  “No easy task, I warn you.”

  “Bah. They don’t call me redoubtable for nothing.”

  “People will be shocked.”

  “Good.” Bors’ thoughts seemed to stray elsewhere. “I like mushrooms.”

  “With suckling pig?”

  “No, no. Those ones in the woods. I think I’ll try to draw them.”

  “I didn’t know you could draw.”

  “I can, rather tolerably. But monsters were never very inspiring.”

  Calantha felt the warmth of the bright leaves wreathing her brow. “I might ask you to illustrate the epic I’m planning to write. The notion just occurred to me as we were walking.”

  Bors’ eyes widened a fraction. “Will it be about mushrooms?”

  “Well, they’ll figure in the plot.”

  “As heroes, or villains?”

  Calantha laughed, and realized it’d been quite a long time since she’d really and truly done so. As they started on the little path through the field to Everafter’s gate, she couldn’t help a question of her own.

  “Speaking of drawing…why your sword?”

  Bors swung his weapon’s gleaming blade in a martial salute. “For the look of the thing, as we make our entrance. Everyone will think I rescued you.”

  “They’ll be right. Which reminds me--I owe Elspeth a keg of malmsey.”

  Bors smiled, something he seldom did; it was always a bit startling. “I can’t imagine mushrooms ever getting dull, can you?”

  Calantha took his offered arm. “Even if they do, there’s always owls.”

  “Excellent.”

  And they lived…well, you know.

  End

  QUEEN OF TIME, contemporary magic realism

  THE RYEL SAGA: A TALE OF LOVE AND MAGIC, the expanded ‘director’s cut’ single-volume edition of the duology WYSARD and LORD BROTHER

  WYSARD AND LORD BROTHER: THE RYEL SAGA DUOLOGY (the one-volume edition of the original paperback versions)

  PENTANGLE: FIVE POINTED FABLES, which gathers together the following short stories (all available separately):

  REGENERATED

  THE KIND GODS

  THE HEART’S DESIRE

  EVERAFTER ACRES

  LAST LAUGHTER