Opening Acts

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  The living soil was a reflection thrown off by a maze of fine threads in the world-beneath. Smoke let his awareness divide and slide across the threads' tangled paths as he hunted for a spirit of mist. There were many ancient forces within the weft and warp of the world-beneath. Most of them were too dangerous to disturb, but the mist was one Smoke did not fear. So when he found it, he woke it up.

  It stirred, sleepily at first. He called to it again.

  Such forces expected to be summoned only by the Haunten, the forest spirits. Smoke was not such. The mist was overcome with anger when it realized this. It boiled up out of the ground, determined to chill and deceive the insolent creature that had dared to waken it. It came so swiftly that its cold, billowing vapor startled the horses, making them snort and draw back.

  Both men were nearly unseated. They cried out in consternation. Then the one who was betrothed shouted to Ketty's father. "This is a haunted place! It was not my wife we heard crashing away, but some enchanted creature."

  Ketty's father was a braver man. "The print of her foot was on the road. It is her, and if you would have her for a wife, then stay and find her!"

  But his horse danced beneath him, close to panic, snorting, stamping, turning in circles. Smoke heard the outraged pleas of the crushed ferns, Send them away! Send them away!

  Since that was the result Smoke desired anyway, he consented to the task.

  Following the threads back up from the ground, he manifested behind a tree, and at once he let go a great screech like the cry of a banshee.

  The horses reared and whinnied. Ignoring the shouts of their riders, they plunged back to the road and fled, galloping north, returning to the safety of their home.

  Smoke wiped the wet of the mist off his forehead. "It would have been easier to kill them," he groused.

  Ketty made no answer, and when he went to look for her he discovered she was no longer among the ferns. "Ah, Ketty, you are a clever, wild wolf." Closing his eyes to listen, he heard faintly the rustle of her passage. She was fleeing east, away from the trail and deeper into the Wild Wood. If she had doubled back, crossing the trail to run west instead, he might have let her go. Running west would have been a bad sign. The Puzzle Lands lay to the west. He'd been born there, and had run away, and was determined never to go again. But Ketty had run east, straight toward the sanctuary of his secret holding in the Wild Wood as if she knew the way and was eager to reach it.

  "Ketty, you can't deny we are meant for each other." With a pleased smile he let his reflection dissolve again and he set out after her, an errant shimmer of smoke breaking free of the mist's cold temper.

  Published by Mythic Island Press LLC

  THE DREAD HAMMER is now available at:

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  About the Author

  Trey Shiels is a pen name of award-winning science fiction author Linda Nagata.

  Visit her online at:

  MythicIsland.com

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