Water Logic (48 page)

Epilogue

One day she realized Jareth was dead.

She had been waiting for him for so long—ten days longer than the longest she had expected to wait.

For months she had not thought about that night, had not thought what it meant. She had done her part, and after that she survived, as she had always survived, with her paints.

Jareth was dead, though. And Senra, Charen, Tarera, and Irin were dead. And they had failed.

She felt a moment of abject grief, and then terror. What if—? What if—!

Her son.

She was painting a new sign for the tavern, applying one last coat of lacquer. She did this work outdoors, in the alley behind the building, all alone. She lay down her brush. In a moment she looked at the sky. The afternoon was well on the way to becoming evening. A tree that bloomed in a nearby yard cast its petals across the rutted dirt. Spring was ending, and summer would come, and then what?

She had expected to die. When she didn’t, she expected something else to happen—a plan, a message, something. She knew what she must not do, but was she to continue in this way forever? What if he didn’t know what to do? What if he had forgotten about her? What if her son—

She could not think that. Must not.

A flower petal had floated into the lacquer, and she carefully picked it out.

A raven flew past, and she watched, her heart pounding, until it was gone.

If Jareth is dead, well then, he is dead, she thought. There were others—she could find the others, couldn’t she? Or send someone a message? Not to him of course, but to someone else.

She was not to do that. He had said—he knew—he was—

What was wrong with her, that she was thinking such things? She would finish the sign, then she would decide what to do. She could wait for Jareth one more day. She could offer her services to the tailor, whose shop sign was practically blank, just a shadow and a few flecks of blue.

The tree cast more petals her way. She looked up again, and saw another raven.

The world is full of ravens, she thought.

Acknowledgments

One February day, a porch rail collapsed under me and I fell sixteen feet onto concrete. I broke seven bones, including a shattered vertebra, and when I regained consciousness I couldn’t inflate my lungs. I was passing out again due to lack of oxygen, but I remember my wife, Deb Mensinger, talking to me very, very calmly. Then she began breathing for me. Without her breath this book wouldn’t have been written—and I hope you appreciate reading it as much as I appreciate being able to write it. Thanks also to the hundred or so friends, relatives, and strangers, who stepped forward to keep my crisis from becoming a catastrophe, a few of whom were Don, Gretchen, and Rod Marks, Ellen Klages, Ellen Kushner, and Judy Goleman. The members of my writer’s group, Delia Sherman, Didi Stewart, and Rosemary Kirstein, steadily offered insightful and incisive commentary on my less-than-coherent first draft, which helped me to produce another, better draft for them to comment on, and another one after that, while, amazingly, their interest and intelligence never flagged. Additional friends of this book include Calie Voorhees, Anita Roy Dobbs, Jeanne Gomoll, Gesine Kernchen, Elizabeth LaVelle, Donna Simone, and Widget, my Welsh corgi. Finally, I have been more than fortunate to find an agent, Shana Cohen, who knows her business and yet manages to remain cheerful and humane; and my editors, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, who from the day they said “yes” made it clear that they valued a lot more than my words.

About the author

Laurie J. Marks (lauriejmarks.com) is the author of eight novels including the Elemental Logic novels,
Fire Logic, Earth Logic,
and the forthcoming
Air Logic.
She lives in Melrose, Massachusetts, and lectures at the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Laurie J. Marks titles available from Small Beer Press

FIRE LOGIC

The martial Sainnites have occupied Shaftal for fifteen years. Every year the cost of resistance rises. Emil, an officer and scholar; Zanja, a diplomat and last survivor of her people; and Karis, a metalsmith, half-blood giant, and an addict, can only watch as their country falls into lawlessness and famine. Together, perhaps they can change the course of history.

How does an occupying army make peace with those they have subjugated? Can a cycle of violence be broken?

Earth * Air * Water * Fire

These elements have sustained the peaceful people of Shaftal for generations, with their subtle powers of healing, truth, joy, and intuition. But now, Shaftal is dying.

The earth witch who ruled Shaftal is dead, leaving no heir. Shaftal’s ruling house has been scattered by the invading Sainnites. The Shaftali have mobilized a guerrilla army against these marauders, but every year the cost of resistance grows, leaving Shaftal’s fate in the hands of three people: Emil, scholar and reluctant warrior; Zanja, the sole survivor of a slaughtered tribe; and Karis the metalsmith, a half-blood giant whose earth powers can heal, but only when she can muster the strength to hold off her addiction to a deadly drug.

Separately, all they can do is watch as Shaftal falls from prosperity into lawlessness and famine. But if they can find a way to work together, they just may change the course of history.

EARTH LOGIC

With
Earth Logic
, Laurie J. Marks continues the epic of her stunningly imagined world of Shaftal, which she first introduced in
Fire Logic.

Shaftal has a ruler again, a woman with enough power to heal the war-torn land and expel the invading Sainnites from Shaftal. Or it would have a ruler if the earth witch Karis G’deon consented to rule. Instead, she lives in obscurity with the fractious family of elemental talents who gathered around her in
Fire Logic.
She is waiting for some sign, but no one, least of all Karis herself, knows what it is.

Then the Sainnite garrison at Watford is attacked by a troop of zealots claiming to speak for the Lost G’deon, and a mysterious and deadly plague attacks the land, killing both Sainnites and Shaftali. Karis must act or watch her beloved country fall into famine and chaos. And when Karis acts, the very stones of the earth sit up and take notice.

AIR LOGIC (forthcoming)

The conclusion of the Elemental Logic series.

Short story collections and novels from Small Beer Press for independently minded readers

Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud,
A Life on Paper: Stories

First translation from the French of “The celebrated Châteaureynaud.”—
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Karen Joy Fowler,
What I Didn’t See and Other Stories

“In all these stories, Fowler (
Sarah Canary, The Jane Austen Book Club
) delights in luring her readers from the walks of ordinary life into darker, more fantastical realms. . . Fowler’s closing story, “King Rat,” is a masterpiece.”—
Seattle Times

Greer Gilman,
Cry Murder! in a Small Voice

Ben Jonson, playwright, poet, satirist . . . detective.

Elizabeth Hand,
Errantry: Stories

“Elegant nightmares, sensuously told.”—
Publishers Weekly

The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin

Two volumes:
Where on Earth
&
Outer Space, Inner Land

“No better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula K. Le Guin.”—
Slate

Karen Lord,
Redemption in Indigo

Mythopoeic, Crawford, Carl Brandon Parallax, & Frank Collymore Award winner

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—
Washington Post

Vincent McCaffrey,
Hound

“McCaffrey, the owner of Boston’s legendary Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop, succeeds in conveying his love of books in his intriguing debut.”—
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Maureen F. McHugh,
After the Apocalypse: Stories

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Publishers Weekly
Top 10 Books of the Year

“An imaginative homage to the human ability to endure.”—
Booklist
(*starred review*)

Naomi Mitchison,
Travel Light

“The enchantments of
Travel Light
contain more truth, more straight talking, a grittier, harder-edged view of the world than any of the mundane descriptions of daily life you will find in the science fiction stories.”—
SF Site

Sofia Samatar,
A Stranger in Olondria

“Samatar’s sensual descriptions create a rich, strange landscape, allowing a lavish adventure to unfold that is haunting and unforgettable.”—
Library Journal
(*starred review*)

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