Water: Tales of Elemental SpiritsA collection of short stories by Peter Dickinson and Robin McKinleyPutnam Publishing Group
|
Excerpt from:A Pool in the DesertbyRobin McKinley...He spoke gently. "This is the station of the fourth Watcher, the Citadel of the Meeting of the Sands, and I am he." "The fourth—Watcher?" she said. "There are eleven of us," he said, still gently. "We watch over the eleven Sandpales where the blood of the head of Maur sank into the earth after Aerin and Tor threw the evil thing out of the City and it burnt the forests and rivers of the Old Damar to the Great Desert in the rage of its thwarting. Much of the desert is quiet—as much as any desert is quiet—but Tor, the Just and Powerful, set up our eleven stations where the desert is not quiet. The first is named the Citadel of the Raising of the Sands, and the second is the Citadel of the Parting of the Sands, and the third is the Citadel of the Breathing of the Sands. . . . The third, fourth, fifth and sixth Watchers are often called upon, for our Pales lie near the fastest way through the Great Desert, from Rawalthifan in the West to the plain that lies before the Queen’s City itself. But I—I have never Watched so badly before. Where did you come from?" he said again, and now she heard the frustration and distress in his voice. "Where do you come from, as if the storm itself had brought you?" Faintly she replied: "I come from Roanshire, one of the south counties of the Homeland; I live in a town called Farbellow about fifteen miles southwest of Mauncester. We live above my father’s furniture shop. And I still do not know where I am." He answered: "I have never heard of Roanshire, or the Homeland, or Mauncester. The storm brought you far indeed. This is the land called Damar, and you stand at the fourth Sandpale at the edge of the Great Desert we call Kalarsham." Copyright © 2002 by Robin McKinleyExcerpt from:Sea SerpentbyPeter DickinsonThe raft slid on. Before and behind the wave the wrinkled water remained unchanged. Iril shook his head and muttered. He was old, he had chewed too much leaf, he was starting to dream untruths. That had happened to his grandfather. He must ease off, or he would build his great raft amiss and so fail in his contract. He was shaking his head again, as if trying to shake the fraudulent dream out of it, when Jarro spoke. In the grip of the trance, Iril had forgotten he was there. "Now!" he gasped, horror in the single word, startling Iril into full awareness. They saw what was happening sooner than the men on the raft. Iril’s sister’s son, up on the platform, had his eyes on the line he must travel, while crew and passengers were below the wave crest and the thing began a pole's length behind it. A shape like a branchless tree shot out of the water, rushing in on the raft and at the same time curving forward and over until the men on the raft saw it, suddenly towering above them. Heads tilted, arms were thrown up, the raft lost its footing on the wave and slewed as the thing struck down, not at the raft itself but into the water beyond it. Now the arch spanned the raft and closed on it. The head emerged behind the sternboard, shooting on and over to make a second coil, now gripping the raft, hauling it back through the wave, tilting it, spilling all that was loose into the churning water, while the head emerged for the third time, hovered a moment and hammered down onto the timbers, blow after blow, smashing the structure apart in an explosion of sunlit foam. Copyright © 2002 by Peter DickinsonPeter Dickinson's Web Site
|