Among the Powers Read Free

something from the air and tossed it to Bredon,
who caught it automatically. “Break that when you’ve decided what
you’ll take instead of the horse.”
    Bredon looked down at what he held. It was a
shiny, bright red disk perhaps five centimeters across, made of
some completely unfamiliar material that seemed as hard as metal,
but with an odd slick texture like nothing he had ever felt before.
“What is it?” Bredon asked, turning it over in his hands.
    Mardon, who had been huddled silently
throughout the conversation, suddenly sat up in the mud at the
sight of this gift and demanded, “What about me?”
    No one answered either question. Bredon
looked up, and discovered that Geste and his platform had vanished
as suddenly as they had appeared.
    What’s more, the horse was gone, leaving
only a gentle rippling on the surface of the muddy pool.
     
     

Chapter Two
    “ ...the stranger said, ‘What? You haven’t found
it? Well, that’s no surprise, for the truth is that I had it all
the time, in my back pocket, and had only forgotten it.’ Then he
looked about at the ruins, at the broken cupboards and tumbled
walls, and he burst out laughing.
    “ The farmer and his wife were shocked that the
traveler could laugh so at another’s misfortune, and the wife began
to berate him soundly, whereupon he laughed all the more, until he
was gasping for breath, his hands clutching at his belly.
    “ This enraged the wife so that she forgot herself
and snatched up a spoon and went to beat upon the stranger, but she
found that the spoon itself refused to strike him, no matter how
hard she tried. This is hardly in the nature of a spoon, of course,
and that was when her husband realized that this stranger was no
mortal man at all. But he could not stop his wife, for so great was
her fury that she would neither listen to reason nor consider the
spoon’s actions for herself, but only tried the harder to bring it
down upon the stranger’s head.
    “ The stranger lifted a hand, and caught his
breath enough to say, ‘Halt, enough!’ Then he waved a hand, and
behold, the walls rose up from the ground and rebuilt themselves,
as sound and whole as ever. The cupboards jumped back into their
accustomed places, and the furniture flew back together and
arranged itself as it had been before the traveler ever set foot
within the door.
    “ The wife dropped the spoon in astonishment and
watched as the miracle took place, allowing the stranger to recover
himself. He stooped and picked up the spoon, and handed it to her,
saying, ‘Here, my good woman, you may find this of use.’
    “ She took it, and saw that the ordinary wood had
been transformed into solid gold.
    ‘“ My apologies,’ the stranger said. ‘I’m sorry
for any inconvenience. I must go now, but you have the thanks of
Geste the Trickster for your most enjoyable hospitality.’ And then
he was gone, vanished as if he had never been.
    “ And the farmer and his wife looked around at
their home and saw all that they had, that they had not
appreciated—four sound walls and a warm roof, well-stocked
cupboards and a comfortable home, and they saw how foolish they had
been. And they did not sell the golden spoon, or melt it down, but
hung it above the fireplace as a reminder of their encounter with
the Trickster.”
    — from the tales of Atheron the
Storyteller
    “It’s not fair,” Mardon insisted, as he sat poking
at the dying cookfire with a broken turnspit.
    Bredon sighed. He had heard this a good many
times in the forty-odd wakes since he and his companion had arrived
safely back in their home village. “Life is rarely fair,” he
pointed out, without moving from where he lay sprawled on his
blankets. “You could have spoken up, just as I did, instead of
hiding your face in the mud.”
    “I thought he was going to kill you!” Mardon
said, giving the coals a particularly vicious jab. Sparks sailed
upward.
    “According to the stories,” Bredon repeated
wearily, “the