too corny. How about, ‘A Tale of Two Loves’? You see, it’s
about two kinds of love, get it?”
Barryn Warrex, not much caring what title the folklorist
gave the story, trudged over to the flat rock where his
helmet and shield were lying.
“Well, I’ll have to give that some thought,” continued
Aril, tapping his quill feather against his downy chin. “By
the way, this is most important: Should I put this story
down as fact or as fable?”
The knight put on his visorless helmet, his grand white
moustaches flowing well out from it on both sides like two
elegant handles. “The story is true enough as far as I’m
concerned.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Aril, squinting at the page
through his spectacles. “It seems pretty incredible – even
for the Forest of Wayreth. Perhaps if you had seen those
Entwining Trees yourself, it would lend credibility – ”
With some effort, Barryn Warrex stooped and lifted his
heavy, dull shield. “My friend, all I know is that I, too, once
had a beautiful daughter, and that one day, she, too, reached
marriageable age. I behaved no better than this Aron
Dewweb.”
“Oh – I’m so sorry,” said Aril Witherwind awkwardly,
not sure how to respond to such a confession. “Uh, I myself
have never had children – ”
The old knight slung the shield across his back, and he
became as stooped under its weight as Aril was under his
tome. Even as he spoke, Barryn Warrex started off down
into the grassy, flower-dotted valley, where butterflies
flitted about him as if to cheer him up. “It is many years
since my own daughter ran away with her lover.”
Aril remained perched on his rock, and, trying to hear
the retreating knight, he started a new page and began
scribbling once more in his book.
“Now this old knight has but one last mission in his
life,” said Warrex, walking ever farther off, his voice
growing fainter, “and that is to find my daughter and this
husband of hers – ”
” – and,” murmured Aril, repeating the knight’s words
exactly as he wrote them down, ” – give – them – my –
blessing.”
A Painter’s Vision
Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel
“It looks so real,” said Curly Kyra with awe. She
brushed long ringlets of black hair away from her eyes and
stared at the painting, ignoring calls from down the bar for
another round of ale. “It’s a beautiful boat.” Softly, with
wonder in her voice, she added, “It seems as if it could
almost sail right off the canvas.”
“Almost, but not quite,” replied Sad-Eye Seron, the
painter. He was a skinny man with a gentle face. His
eyebrows drooped at the edges, giving him the perpetually
sad expression that had earned him his nickname. But he
smiled now, enjoying the effect his new painting was
having on the lovely, young barmaid he had courted all
summer long.
“Will it make a lot of money?” asked Kyra hopefully.
Seron’s smile vanished. “I sometimes think that you’re
the only one who likes my work. Everybody else in Flotsam
says, ‘Why buy pictures of things that I can see whenever I
look out my window?’ ”
“Hey, Kyra,” bellowed a patron with an empty mug.
“Am I going to get a refill, or should I just come back there
and pour my own?”
The tavern owner stuck his head out of the kitchen.
“Tend to business,” he warned his barmaid.
“All right, I’m going,” Kyra said. But she didn’t move.
Instead, she shook her head at the magnificent sailing scene
and stood there in admiration of Seron’s artistry.
If Seron was an underappreciated painter, the same
could not be said of the pretty picture known as Curly Kyra.
Every unmarried man – and plenty of the married ones – had
hopes of bedding her. She had alabaster skin, bright brown
eyes, and full lips that seemed created expressly for kissing.
Even more inviting than her lips, however, was the purely
feminine shape of her figure; since coming of age this
summer, she had to slap men’s hands more often than she
had to slap at bugs.