Ice Magic Page 3

in the dance. One or two of them started to pair off and leave the dance to find a quiet, dark place together. Some of them were Horse women with Auroch men.

  Bran glanced behind him as Gol loomed over him. He kept the pipe playing, and kept it loud.

  "Boy - this is not what I wanted you to do," Gol growled furiously in his ear.

  Bran played on, looking for Deri in the crowd of dancers, hoping he would notice what was going on.

  "Boy - stop that racket and do what I told you to do."

  Bran kept playing.

  What happened next was too fast for him to follow clearly. Gol had his hand on Bran's arm, and then Gol was on the ground, with Deri slumped on his knees beside him. Mara was standing to one side, with both her fists clenched up at her mouth.

  "Keep playing," she whispered, and then she was on her knees beside Deri. There was a puddle of - water? - between Deri and Gol - and Gol.... Bran did miss a few notes then. Gol was smaller than he had been, and his skin in the firelight looked like lined and cracked leather.

  Together, without making a fuss, Deri and Mara lifted the body (it seemed very light, suddenly) and moved it away from the fires.

  Bran had run out of all the tunes he knew by now, but he kept playing, repeating some that he had played before.

  As the fires burned lower, the dancers left the dancing place, whispering and giggling, and the old women gave up their clapping and banging of sticks, and finally, Bran stopped playing his pipe.

  When he woke the next day, it was already past noon, and he found that his throat was so dry and swollen that he could barely swallow. Around him, people were awake, but moving slowly or gathering in groups and giggling. Bran wandered to the lake edge to get a drink. Some of the children were swimming there, splashing water at each other and shrieking with laughter. Bran's head ached, and the water didn't seem to help his throat much, and he wanted to find somewhere quiet to sit.

  He groaned quietly as Eber, Gol's right hand man, strode across the camp straight towards him.

  "I don't understand what you did last night," Eber said, "but this morning, there are men of the Auroch people who want to go with the Horse people, and women of the Horse people who want to come with us. And Gol is missing. Have you seen him?"

  Bran thought of the dessicated corpse he had seen last night, and hoped that Deri and Mara had hidden it well. He shrugged and shook his head at Eber.

  "Maybe it doesn't matter," Eber said. "What happened last night was much better than his plan, and if he's not here, than I should go and speak to the leader of the Horse people."

  THE END

  Lesley Arrowsmith trained as an archaeologist, and enjoyed using some of that knowledge to tell this story.

  Raven's Heir is the story of Owain Brecca Morwenna, whose Talent, like Bran in this story, is the control of the element of Air. He was captured by pirates and is trying to get home - where he finds his troubles are only just beginning....This is set in a Land of Ytir roughly equivalent to the Middle Ages in European history.

  Like Father, Like Daughter is the story of Malcolm Petroc, who appears to be a bookseller in the small town of Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh borders. However, he is really in exile from Ytir, where he is considered a traitor for kidnapping Branwen, his adopted daughter. Then his ex-wife finds out where he is, and sends their daughter Arian to bring him back - and Arian has to decide where her loyalties lie.

  Quarter Day is the story of Arian's first solo mission for her patron, Morwenna of Ravenscar, to the Duchy of Montfermo where magic seems to have been wiped out.

  Another novel about Arian will be ready soon, and there will be more stories about Owain, too, as he travels far to the south of Ytir, to Kharazan and the Koine Empire.