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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: It was prophesied that Tally would save her people, but the night that the trolls raided her village, she discovered that she wasn't entirely human.

eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, Published: Sword & Sorceress 20, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2008

19 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [26 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [42 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [20 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [198 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [21 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [70 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [92 KB] , hiebook (KML) [79 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [57 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [18 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [23 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [56 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [34 KB]
Words: 6418
Reading time: 18-25 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Dama Brit had always protected and defended Tally, right from the day, twenty years earlier, when they had first found her, a naked squalling babe, abandoned at Headman Vilran's door. His wife, Solan, had decried her as a changeling, demanding she be left to her fate in the woods. But Dama Brit had intervened, speaking of a dream she'd had that night. Her dream familiar had warned her that just such a child would come, and that the girl must be nurtured and cherished, for she would one day save them all.

The Dama's word carried more weight than Solan's, so Tally had been spared and fostered to the Brinallens, who had no daughter. The couple, though grateful enough for another strong back and an extra pair of hands, were hardly loving, and Tally had expected to end her days no better than a servant in their house. But when her cycles began, to her surprise, Dama Brit once more intervened in her life, claiming Tally as her apprentice.

She had indeed proved to have a gift for magic. But like so much else about her, the power she wielded proved to be clumsy and capricious. Her spells were as like to break as to mend, and her gift for mind-speech worked most often when she didn't want or need it.

"Be patient," Dama Brit had said. "Great talent takes time to master." But it seemed now that time had run out. Tally choked back a sob as she remembered the screams of terror and rage that had accompanied her flight from the village.

She had caught glimpses of the huge shambling figures moving with single-minded purpose toward the center of the village as she slipped into the trees. But she had sensed the deep slow power of earth in their movements and their thoughts, feeling something almost like kinship with the brutish, elemental creatures. Her stomach clenched at that traitorous thought, but it was true. For all her appearance of humanity. Tally had felt closer, in that one instant, to the monstrously alien beings who attacked her home than she ever had to the people who had raised her. And that realization disturbed her more than anything else.

Shaking off the shroud of memory, Tally rose to examine the chamber. Something rolled away from her foot. Stooping to feel for it, she discovered the remnants of a torch. Though she saw well enough in ordinary darkness, light would be useful if she were to explore further. Digging out the flint she carried in her belt pouch, she struck spark after spark until the ancient wood reluctantly took flame.

The torch must have lain for a very long time in the cold damp chamber, for it smoked horribly and smelled faintly of mildew and dust. Holding it aloft she saw that the chamber was one of massive proportions and that a doorway toward the rear led into an even larger room. Curiosity momentarily overriding caution, she stepped through the opening to discover what appeared to be a reception hall with yet another doorway at its rear.

This she ignored, her attention being drawn to the long stone dais that dominated the room. At its center was set a huge seat carved from a single mass of the clearest, most delicately colored rose quartz crystal she had ever seen. Even laden with dust, it glowed softly in the flickering torchlight. Four more seats of less elaborate design and less extraordinary stones were ranged on either side--marble and citrine to the left; agate and quartz to the right.

As enthralled as she was by the beauty of the rose quartz throne, what drew her was the figure seated there. Some ancient and powerful magical force hummed to life as she stepped up onto the time-worn granite of the dais to examine it; the volume of the power-song it broadcast nearly drowned the warm, soothing chime of the crystal as she approached.

Clothed in regal splendor, the remains of some long-dead mage or potentate seemed to meet her gaze with an imperious stare. But it must have been a trick of the light, for upon closer inspection she saw that what really sat upon the crystal throne was a skeleton in rags, held intact by bits of leathery sinew. But as she stared, that other, grander image once again overlaid the reality, then faded entirely.