21W.759 Science Fiction Writing — Fall 2006

Joe Haldeman

Short Story

On Assignment

Kevin Riggle (kevinr@mit.edu)

November 9, 2006

She found herself in a comfortable, spare room furnished with clean, modern-looking

furniture—several low, padded chairs and a couch. She furrowed her brow. There was

a door in the far wall, and she approached it, examining herself in the full-length mirror

mounted on it. She was wearing her usual sensible black leather shoes, her comfortable jeans,

her nice-but-not-too-trendy blouse, her dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and her

best interested-and-friendly-but-not-available look. She saw the corners of her mouth turn

up, just a little, as she read the yellowing sign tacked above the mirror—“Here There Be

Dragons.” Someone’s idea of a joke. She opened the door and walked through—time to go

meet the natives, she thought.

A light shone brightly in her eyes.

“Oh, there you are, dearie. I’ve been expecting you.”

It must be late afternoon here. She shielded her eyes against the glare; it was a second

before she could see the woman’s outline against the window.

“It’s your first time here, isn’t it?” the woman said. “Tell me, child, what’s your name?”

“Hi, I’m Sarah Bradstreet,” she said, crossing the room to shake the old woman’s hand.

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“Welcome to Arkadial!” the old woman said, ignoring the hand. Sarah could see her

better now—she was short and a little pudgy, but her cheeks were rosy and her eyes twin-

kled with a youthful liveliness. She was seated on a stool behind a deeply-scored counter,

surrounded by what must have been hundreds of bolts of cloth in a variety of colors and

patterns. There was a large mirror next to the counter. It was cool in the shop, and Sarah

smelled dust and smoke and something else which she couldn’t identify, acrid and musky, on

the chill breeze that blew in through the open door.

“I’m a reporter with TechSpecs,” Sarah added, unneccesarily.

“Let me just find my cane, Sarah, and we’ll get you something to wear,” the old woman

said. “They’ll never let you go around looking like that.” She hopped off her stool and

rummaged under the counter, producing a gnarled, blackened wooden cane.

Sarah glanced at herself in the mirror. She was wearing the same clothing she’d been

wearing in the vestibule. “I don’t need any new clothes,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, you look fine, Sarah. Now hold out your arms,” said the old woman, hobbling over

and starting to take measurements. Sarah nodded, confused.

“You can’t dress like you do Outside in here.”

“I just want to walk around for a day or two asking questions,” she protested. “I’m not

going to be a regular visitor.”

“That’s nice, dearie. You still can’t wander around in Outside clothes.”

“Why not?”

“Because it just isn’t done. We’re a community, y’see, we’ve got standards to uphold.”

“You can’t relax them, even for a couple days?”

“It’s not up to me, dearie. If you go out there, the Watch will fine you for wearing

out-of-character garb. If they’re feeling particularly mischevious, they’ll strip you down to

your drawers.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh. It’s like a dress code at a club?”

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“In a manner of speaking,” the old woman said. She offered Sarah several pretty dresses,

but Sarah eventually settled on a practical but close-fitting pair of men’s black pants, a light-

blue tunic, a slightly scuffed brown leather vest (“Used but clean,” the old woman said), a

black felt cap, and a sturdy pair of boots.

Sarah stared at the pile of clothes on the counter. “Well, aren’t you going to try them

on?” asked the old woman.

Sarah looked up, slightly startled. “I’ve been trying to do that. The interface isn’t

working.”

“No, no, child. You’ve got to put them on.”

“You mean, like in a meatspace clothing store? I haven’t been to one of those in ages.”

The old woman gave a low, snorting chuckle. “We do things a little differently here,

child.”

Sarah struggled into the outfit and looked at herself in the mirror.

“How do they fit?” the old woman asked.

“Pretty good,” Sarah said.

“Well, well, what do you know,” the old woman said. “Guess I’ve still got the touch.”

She smiled. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you into girl clothes. They’d have done your figure a

lot of good.”

Sarah looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t think she had much of a figure. The

clothes did make her look good, if a little odd.

“Here, dearie,” the old woman said, handing her a belt with a pouch. “Put this on. It’ll

help keep your pants up. No, no, the other way around the waist, then through the loop. . . .

Here.” She helped Sarah into the belt, then lit the oil lamp that was sitting on her counter,

dispelling the deepening gloom of evening inside the shop.

“Everyone here dresses like this?” Sarah asked.

“Yuhuh.” The old woman was distracted, making some marks on a slip of what looked

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like paper.

“All the time?”

“Yuhuh.”

Sarah shook her head. “Crazy.”

The old woman looked up, frowning. “Crazy? Not at all. You’d think we were strange,

dearie, if we were walking around, say, downtown New York City dressed like that, and you

would be right, so when we’re Outside we follow your rules. But we’d think you strange,

walking around Arkadial dressed as you were, and so you have to follow ours.” She returned

to her slip of paper.

Sarah nodded noncommittaly. Just then the wind picked up, cutting through the thin

fabric of her tunic, and she shivered. “I can’t adjust my temperature anymore,” she said to

the old woman.

“Well, not with your veeyar interface, you can’t. You’re in Arkadial now, dearie. Here,”

she said, getting up and closing the bottom half of the door, then hobbling to the back of

the shop, returning with a long, thick cloak. “Put this on.”

The cloak was made of some rough, grey fabric, and it was quite warm.

“Your total, with the cloak, is fifteen gold.”

Sarah’s eyes went wide. “Gold? I’ve got a credit number. . . .”

The old woman smiled, wrinkling the skin around the corners of her eyes. “Check your

pouch, dearie.”

Sarah fumbled it open, holding it so that the light from the oil lamp would illuminate

inside. Something glinted. She pulled out a handful of small gold-colored disks. “These?”

The old woman nodded, and Sarah counted out fifteen onto the counter. “You gave these

to me?” she asked.

“I’d like to say I did, dearie, but they’re your own money.” She picked up one of the

disks and bit it. “Some of the money you—or your employer—spent on your membership

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got converted into our currency. Everybody starts with a certain amount, just to get them

set up, and then you can freely convert dollars to gold or vice versa.”

Sarah nodded. “Arkadial has its own economy?” she asked, mostly to confirm her

suspicions.

“Yuhuh.”

Sarah smiled. “It makes sense. Say, I want to meet people here—talk to them. Where’s

a good place to do that?”

“Hmm. . . your best bet’s the inn down the road. The Old Oak, it’s called. Just turn left

and follow the main road—you can’t possibly miss it. You might be wanting to spend the

night there, too.”

Sarah looked out the window. The sun was mostly down, although there was still a little

bit of light on the horizon.

“Indeed. That sounds like a good idea. Thank you for your help, Mrs.. . . ”

“Ann Taylor,” the old woman said, bobbing her head in what might have been an attempt

at a curtsy.

“Mrs. Taylor. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, dearie. Enjoy your time here.”

Sarah unlatched the door and stepped out into the blue-black of twilight. As she turned

to close the door, the old woman said, “And, oh, yes, dearie—watch out when you leave the

city. There’ve been reports of monsters in the forest killing unwary travellers.”

Sarah grinned and laughed a little. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

The old woman wasn’t smiling anymore. Her eyes were wide and serious as she stared at

Sarah. “You be careful now, y’hear? Arkadial can be a dangerous place. I know you don’t

think so, but. . .My husband and my second son were killed in the service of the Duke, and

my eldest son lost his arm to a dragon, and they were the lucky ones. Take care of yourself.”

All levity gone, Sarah nodded. “I will. Thank you.”

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What a strange place, she thought. Her son was killed? How is that possible? It’s only a

virtual world.

She turned left and followed the main road. It was cobblestone, and her new boots made

a soft clacking sound as she walked. She glanced back and saw the old woman closing the

top half of the shop door. It was too dark to read the sign on the storefront.

She heard rushing water in the distance, but she couldn’t place its source. Most of the

buildings in the town were houses, set close to the road. Candles burned in the windows of

some, but very few people were out. She saw a man in a top-hat walking the other way, and

he greeted her and tipped his hat. The moon was at just a little under half-full, lending the

town a ghostly glow. The wind blew cold in her face, whipping her hair about her, but the

cloak blocked the worst of it. She pulled her cap down over her ears for good measure. The

road bent to parallell a rushing stream, which quickly became a pond. Dried leaves crunched

under her feet. She passed a grist mill, its wheel still, and followed the road down along the

spillway. There were more trees along the stream, blocking the moonlight, and she nearly

tripped on a fallen branch. Cursing, she dragged it to the side of the road, and, pausing

for breath, heard a sharp snarl in the darkness behind her that made something in her gut

tighten. She was about to run when she heard something else—a shout, low and guttural.

She waited. It came again, louder this time. “Help! Help!” It was coming from the woods

behind her. Shit, she thought. She bit her lower lip in indecision.

The shout came again—“Help!”

Damn me for a fool, she thought. Grunting, she broke a couple large sticks off the branch

and started in, picking her way carefully for fear of falling. There were pockets of dead leaves

here and there, and she crashed through them, trying to make as much noise as she could.

Always, always, I’m wading in where I shouldn’t be, she thought. Not just watching the

police club protesters, no—I’ve got to join them and get arrested. I tag along on a “routine

warez bust,” and I end up cowering behind a shipping carton while the hacker and the feds

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trade shots. And now this. . . There was a sharp drop-off ahead, and she nearly didn’t see

it in the dark. She clutched at a spindly tree to catch herself, kicking dead leaves into the

gully in front of her. Moonlight filtered through the gap in the trees, and she could see that

there was a person at the bottom of the shallow gully, right under her feet, who looked up in

time to get a face full of dirt and leaf mold. The person coughed. Sarah panted something

almost wordless, and the man resonded with an equally wordless shout. He was leaning up

against a tree root that jutted out of the side of the gully, reloading a bow. Just then she

heard a low snarl and looked up to see a large dark form jump heavily down the far bank

of the gully. Adrenaline bloomed in her back, and she felt her heart start to race. It was an

animal of some kind—four long, lean, almost gangly legs, a pointed face with pointed ears.

It growled again, and Sarah saw that it had a huge mouth full of sharp teeth that glinted

in the moonlight. It was limping slightly—she saw several arrows sticking out of its side. It

turned slightly and the moonlight caught its fur, shining silver. Even injured it moved like

quicksilver. It crouched. Sarah looked down; the man was still fumbling with his bow. The

creature was going to jump. She let her breath out steadily, trying to will her hands not to

shake as she took one of her sticks and aimed it, throwing it as hard as she dared. It flew,

missed, ricocheting harmlessly off a rock on the other side of the gully. The animal looked

up, quickly, then leapt, and she threw her second stick, hitting it squarely in the middle.

The man’s bowstring twanged and suddenly the animal’s snarl turned into a gurgle, and still

the man screamed as it bit his shoulder. Then its eyes went glassy, and he screamed again

as he threw its weight off with his injured arm.

Sarah sat down, the weight of what had just happened catching up with her. In doing

so she knocked more dirt into the gully. Everything had happened so quickly.

“Do not come down here,” the man choked. “You might hurt yourself, and then you

would be of no use to me.” His voice was cracked and phleghmy.

“All right,” she said, her voice high with stress.

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“You’re hurt?” she asked. It seemed like a stupid question.

“My leg,” the man said. “How strong are you?”

She slipped her hand under the cloak and put it on her upper arm. When she flexed the

arm she felt her bicep bulge under the thin fabric of her tunic. “Strong enough,” she said.

“I can’t lift you all by myself, but I bet I can help you up.”

“Brace yourself against something.”

She shook the tree she’d stopped herself on earlier—it seemed firmly planted. She locked

her legs around it, then lay down on her belly with her chest thrust out over the lip of the

gully, stretching out both her hands to grab the man’s outstretched arms. “You’re ready?”

she asked.

“Yes.”

“All right—one, two, three,” she said, and on ‘three’ she helped the man climb up, up,

the side wall of the gully, slowly and painfully. He gasped when she put weight on his injured

arm, and again when he tried to support himself on his left leg. He was heavier than she’d

expected—he didn’t look large, but he must be muscular. His boots scraped at the bank,

and his vest snagged on jutting roots and rocks. She grunted as she pulled him past the

obstructions. When she got his shoulders above the lip of the gully, she twisted at her waist,

pulling his arms back away from the gully and bringing the rest of his torso up and over so

that most of his weight was supported on the bank, and they rested him there. Her biceps

screamed with pain. The man used his hips and his good arm to writhe his way fully up

onto the bank, and they both lay there panting.

Once her breathing slowed, she asked, “What was that thing?”

“A great-wolf. . . ,” the man said, still fighting for breath. “From the north. . . ”

“Weird. It doesn’t look like the wolves at the zoo.”

“Great-wolves are not. . . normally found in. . . this part of Arkadial.”

“Oh.” Sarah didn’t know what to make of that. A pause. “How come you were down in

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that gully?”

“That thing. . . surprised me as I was. . . coming into town,” the man said. “I wounded it,

but I didn’t see the gully. . . and I fell in and hurt my leg.” He struggled to sit up.

“Can your leg support your weight?” Sarah asked. The man shook his head. “What do

you do for medical transport in Arkadial?” she asked.

He looked confused, and then gave his head a quick shake, like he was trying to clear

his mind. “I need to go to a healer,” he said. He looked around, scanning the surrounding

forest. “There may be more wolves. They will smell my injury and be drawn to it. Help me

up.”

“Is there a healer in this town up ahead?” she asked, kneeling herself and then bracing

him under his arms and helping him stand.

“I don’t know,” he said, wincing as he stood. “I’ve never been to this part of the Orran

Woods before.”

“If we go to the inn, will they know where to find a healer?” she asked.

He shrugged.

She pursed her lips. “We’ll have to hope they do. Lean on me,” she said, and they

started carefully picking their way through the woods. It was slow, and the man could not

support much of his own weight. They stopped several times to catch their breath and quell

the shaking of their limbs.

At last they emerged back onto the main road, not far from where Sarah had left it. The

grist mill sat dark up the road on their left. “The inn should be just a little bit further

down the road,” Sarah said wearily, then returned her eyes to the road. Her arms and back

ached. This is really weird, she thought fleetingly. I didn’t know you could feel pain like this

in veeyar. She wished she could turn it down a little, make it more bearable, but none of

her controls were responding. She risked a glance at the man beside her. The muscles in the

his jaw bulged and his brow was knotted. I hope he’s not really feeling the full pain of an

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injured leg. That would be horrible.

Breathing heavily, they rounded a bend in the road, coming out from under the trees into

the moonlight again. She smacked her lips, trying to make her mouth water. A brightly-lit

building close on their left swam in front of her vision, a huge old tree behind it. Is that the

Old Oak? She made for the door, but couldn’t read the sign even as she got closer, so blurry

was her vision. As she approached it, the door opened and two people came out. When they

saw her half-carrying the man, the boy held the door for her, and the girl ran back inside,

shouting “Uncle! Uncle! There’s a man who’s hurt!”

The common room of the inn was warm and dim. A fire burned in a large stone hearth on

the far wall, its smoke hanging in the close air, and a half-dozen or so patrons sat scattered

around the room. She stared at the fire. This is odd, she thought. She couldn’t feel her legs

any more. Something funny was happening to her vision. . . . It was as though the fire was

at the opposite end. . . of a long. . . tunnel. . . and she was moving. . . towards it. . . yet. . . at the

same time. . . standing. . . still. . . .

One of the patrons nearest the door rushed to her and caught the man she was carrying

as she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Something cold splashed on her face. She was half-sitting up, and her stomach was

clenched and queasy. A gruff voice said, “Drink this,” and something hard was pressed

against her lips. She drank; it was water, cool and sweet with a hint of oak, and it slid

down her throat like fire and ice. She drained the glass. Her body hurt all over. Someone

chuckled. Another glass was pressed against her lips, and she drank again, less deeply this

time. Finally she opened her eyes, blinking, until she could see the face of the man standing

over her. Suddenly remembering where she was and why she was there, she half-turned and

saw the man she’d been carrying lying on the floor. The girl who had run back into the inn

was kneeling beside him.

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“Ah, there she is,” said the big man who’d been standing over her. She sat up fully, and

she finished her water and handed the glass to him. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely. In the

background, someone said something about “white hair on ’him.” The man knelt so he was

on the same level as her, his linen apron brushing the floor. He smelled of barley and hops

and cooked meat, and his face was large and creased with laughter. The inkeeper? “What

happened to ’im?” he asked, gesturing to the man lying on the floor.

Sarah saw now that the girl was in the process of splinting his leg. “A great-wolf, he

called it.” Even in the dim light of the inn, she could see the dark blood crusted on the

shoulder of the man’s tunic where the wolf had bitten him. Are there were werewolves in

Arkadial? The girl finished the splint, and two of the other men knelt and picked the man

up. “Rance and Ori will take him to the healer,” the innkeeper said. “Let’s get you to

bed.” He picked her up and carried her up a narrow, steep set of stairs at the back of the

inn, which creaked under their combined weight. There were small candleholders in a niche

at the top of the stairs, and the corridor was lit by an oil lamp which burned there. Their

shadow seemed to loom over them, cast on the wall’s rough planks. The innkeeper opened

a door and ducked into a tiny room, setting her on a short, narrow bed. She sank gratefully

into the mattress, straw crunching as she shifted, and she breathed deeply of the scent of it

and the starched linen sheets.

The innkeeper left, returning to place a pitcher of water in the washstand and a candle-

holder with a few oily matches on the nightstand, but Sarah was already asleep, her breath

hissing softly.

She woke with a dry mouth and a full bladder. There was diffuse sunlight coming in

through the single tiny window in the room, filtered through the leaves of the trees outside.

At some point in the night she must have gotten cold and crawled under the covers. She

tried to sit up and yowled as every muscle in her upper body registered its existence. Ow,

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she thought. This is maybe a little too realistic. She stiffly turned and, bracing herself on

the wall, stood. She was still wearing everything she’d had on last night, including her boots.

Her feet ached.

She limped her way downstairs. The stair didn’t have a handrail, so she leaned against the

wall for balance. She came out into the kitchen, which bustled with activity. The innkeeper

saw her emerge from the gloom of the stairway and hailed her with a smile. “Good morning,

sleepy’ead! Welcome back to the land of the livin’.”

She smiled back. “Good morning. Where’s the bathroom?”

It took the innkeeper a moment to respond. “The outhouse is out back,” he said, gesturing

to a wide door which was open to reveal a broad expanse of hard-packed earth. The breeze

which it admitted carried the smell of hay and dried leaves.

There was a small stable some dozen yards from the inn. A cast-iron pump sat in the

middle of the courtyard between the two buildings. A stablehand carrying a pitchfork nodded

at her curtly. She found the outhouse behind the stable, a small building, and did what she

had to do. Then she came back to the pump and worked its lever until water splashed out,

washing her hands with the bar of hard soap that sat on a low stone nearby. The stream

faltered, and she pumped again, splashing the cold water on her face and then cupping it in

her hands to drink it and soothe her parched throat.

“Would ya’ fill that bucket and bring it in?” the innkeeper asked. He was standing at

the door of the inn, under its awning, gesturing to the oak bucket sitting by the pump.

“Sure,” she said, placing the bucket under the pump and working the lever. Her muscles

protested, but the morning sun warmed her back and they started to loosen up. I should

really stretch before I do anything today, she thought.

She brought the full bucket inside and gave it to the innkeeper, who poured it into a

cast-iron pot, which hung from a pair of thick chains over the kitchen fire. “The man I

brought in last night—” Sarah asked, “how is he?”

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“He lost a lot a’ blood, but he should be all right. Once you’ve got some breakfast in

ya’, you can go visit ’im at the healer’s.”

She closed her eyes. “Mmmm, breakfast. That sounds wonderful.”

“’Ere, grab a plate,” he told her, pointing to the sink where a boy, maybe ten or twelve,

was quickly washing a stack of dirty metal plates. The boy wiped his hands on his white

apron and held out a steaming plate to her with a shy smile. She took it, gasping at the

heat. The plate was almost dry. “Sorry, i’s hot,” the boy mumbled.

She smiled back at him, inclining her head. “Thank you.”

“’Ere,” the innkeeper said. She held out the plate, holding it by the edges, and he poured

a ladle-full of thick grey porridge onto it, which he topped with four large sausages, setting a

pair of steaming hard-boiled eggs on the side of the plate. “There,” he said, “a breakfast fit

for a Ranger.” He handed her a knife, a spoon, and a stein. “Beer’s there,” he said, pointing

to a huge cask with a tap at the bottom. “Water’s from the well out back. Table’s over

there.” He gestured to a long table made of planks of grey wood. Two little girls in simple

dresses, maroon and brown, sat on the benches making faces at each other. “Shoo, go get

cleaned up,” he told them, and they ran shrieking out into the yard. “And don’t go near the

forest!” he yelled after them. The innkeeper sighed tolearantly and cleaned up their dishes.

“Yours?” Sarah asked.

“Yah,” the innkeeper said. “Catherine and Samantha. Both nine years old. Twins,

though you wouldn’ know it from how they fight.”

“Forgive me,” Sarah said. “I don’t know your name. I’m Sarah Bradstreet.” She held

out her hand.

The innkeeper gave her a shallow bow, then shook her hand. “Peter Gastwirt, at yer

service. If ya’ need anythin’, jus’ ask.”

She sat and dug into her food. The porridge was oaty and toothsome. She speared a

sausage and bit its end off, its juice running down her face. It was meaty and very peppery.

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The strong spices burned the inside of her mouth, and she realized she had failed to get

something to drink. The cask of beer was closest, so she half-filled the stein. A mouthful

washed the spiciness down. The beer was dark amber and medium-bodied, with a slightly

bitter, hopsy taste that got up in her nose. She cut up the sausage and mixed it with the

porridge to temper its heat, downing the mixture in great gulps along with sips of beer.

This place is so strange, she reflected as she ate. It’s so easy to get caught up in its logic.

It’s such a believable virtual world. And everyone in it seems to believe in it, too. She shook

her head. Crazy.

The innkeeper saw her finish her breakfast and told her, “Jus’ give the dishes to Ernest.

He’ll take care of ’em. You’ll be wantin’ to visit your friend at the healer’s.”

She nodded. “Thank you so much for taking care of me last night and giving me breakfast.

How much do I owe you?” she asked, pulling out her money-pouch.

“Nothing. ’S on the house. You saved that man’s life last night—this is the least I can

do for ya’.” Peter smiled.

Sarah felt her face grow hot. “Thank you. I’m not really sure I. . . ,” but Peter’s look

silenced her. “Thank you,” she said again meekly.

The innkeeper gave her directions—it wasn’t far—and she set out. It was a beautiful fall

day, crisp and clear. In the daylight she could see that the trees were turning, their leaves

red and yellow and orange. She kicked through a pile of leaves by the roadside, just because

she could. Bending, she picked up a leaf and examined it closely. She could just barely see

the polygonal outline of the leaf—it was a very high-quality model. The leaf was a deep,

mottled red, with thick veins. She picked up another, comparing it to the first. They were

very similar, but there were subtle differences in their structure. The second leaf had a couple

of black spots near its base. They must be generating these textures with genetic algorithms,

she thought. And they’ve got a disease model, too. This leaf is a ridiculous amount of data.

The smell, the feel—she bit the leaf, grimacing at the bitter taste—everything was there.

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She tried to invoke her online notepad, failed, rummaged in her bag and found the receipt

for her clothes but no pen, and resolved to acquire the local equivalent of a notepad as soon

as she could so she could start taking notes. This story had potential. Arkadial was so

different from other virtual worlds, so organic—which, she realized, was probably why her

boss Darlene had thought it might be worth writing about.

She started walking again and passed the grist mill she’d seen last night, its wheel turning

busily. Following the innkeeper’s directions, she turned right down a side road and went over

a low stone bridge that spanned the river where it fed into the mill-pond, then followed a

winding dirt road for about a quarter mile. Soon she came upon a comfortable-looking

whitewashed cottage, set a little back from the road. Several children of varying sizes played

on the sparse yard, while at least as many cats looked on from the front stoop. The cats

scattered as she approached, except for one large grey tabby. She knocked on the wooden

door and heard movement inside. A freckle-faced boy, maybe sixteen or so, opened the door.

She smiled at him and said, “Hi, I’m here to see the man who was brought in late last night.

I’m a friend of his.”

He looked her up and down seriously, then said, “Please give me your weapon.”

“I don’t have one.”

Satisfied, he ushered her into the house and through a narrow hallway to a large, brightly-

lit room with several beds in it. Only one bed was occupied—the man she’d brought to the

inn last night lay in the bed, snoring softly. The clothes he’d been wearing the night before

were stacked neatly on a chair by his bed, and his shoulder and leg were both bandaged.

Something brushed against her leg, and she looked down to see that the tabby had followed

her in. “Don’t worry about Grandy; he’s always in and out,” said a woman’s voice, and

Sarah looked up as a statuesque woman with short dark hair entered the room from the

other side. “Thank you, Josef,” she said to the young man, and he left quietly.

Sarah smiled, holding out her hand. “Hi, I’m Sarah Bradstreet. I brought him in to the

15

inn last night.”

The other woman’s eyebrows arched as they shook hands. “I’m Eva Hildebrandt. That’s

quite impressive.”

Sarah shrugged. “Thank you. How’s he doing?”

“He’s not too bad off, all things considered. His leg will be fine. He sprained his ankle

pretty badly, but I treated it with a poultice and splinted it better, so he’s just got to stay

off it for the next several weeks. The bite-wound was all into muscle, so I just cleaned it and

bandaged it up. He’ll have a dramatic scar, but he should be otherwise fine.”

“Good,” Sarah said. “Say, about the bite. . . ” She decided to ask the question which had

been bothering her. “Arkadial doesn’t have werewolves, does it?”

Eva laughed, rich and deep. “No, there are no werewolves here, all the stories people tell

to the contrary. At least, I don’t think so—” Her voice turned serious. “Were you with him

when he was attacked?”

“Not at first. I was walking on the road and heard him yell for help. I found him in the

forest.”

“Were there any other people around?”

Sarah was startled. “I didn’t see any.”

“Did you see the animal which attacked him?”

“I did.”

“What did it look like?”

Sarah thought back. “It was a big, gangly thing.” The memory made her skin crawl. I

mostly remember red eyes and sharp teeth, and its white fur.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Hmm. What happened to the animal?”

“It jumped on him,” Sarah said, indicating the man, “and he shot it, point-blank, with

an arrow.”

“How long did it take to die?”

16

Sarah shivered a little, reliving the adrenaline rush. “It died pretty quickly. Then again,

there were already three or four arrows in its side.”

The healer sighed. “So it was a great-wolf. Damn.”

“That was what he said, too. What does that mean?” Sarah asked.

The healer looked at her. “It means the attacks are growing more frequent. This is the

third one in a week. Everything you are telling me fits the pattern we have seen.”

“What pattern?” Sarah gave her a quizzical look. “I’m not from around here,” she said

apologetically.

The healer half-smiled. “Here, let us talk of this elsewhere.” She led Sarah through an

archway at the back of the room into a kitchen redolent of dried plants and spices. Bunches

of herbs hung upside-down from the rafters and a black kettle hung over a fire in the hearth,

which crackled lazily. Eva plucked a couple of biscuits from a pan on the top of the cast-iron

stove and, rummaging in a cupboard, pulled out a jar and opened it, then handed Sarah a

knife. “Gooseberry preserves,” she said. She took a pitcher from the counter and poured

Sarah a glass of water.

Sarah carefully sliced her biscuit, still warm from the stove, and spread the preserves on

it, then took a bite. “Mmmm. . . ” The biscuit was buttery and flaky, and the preserves were

sweet and just tart enough. “So, a pattern,” she said.

“Yes—the first attack was several months ago. They were sporadic at first, but they’ve

been happening more frequently in the past couple of weeks. The victims are always lone

travellers in the forest, and they’re being attacked by some large animal with white fur. We

were guessing for a while that it was just a large albino wolf, but from your description. . . ”

Sarah interrupted her. “This is fascinating, but if I’m going to remember it I’d better

write it down. Could I borrow something to write on?”

“Certainly.” The healer rummaged and found a crinkled scrap of paper which smelled of

fresh bread and offered Sarah an inkwell and a quill pen.

17

“Do you have a pencil?” Sarah asked hopefully.

“No, I don’t. Will a piece of charcoal do?”

“I guess so. I wish Arkadial had an online notepad. I’m actually kind of surprised it

doesn’t—it’s become so common.”

Eva snorted, smiling. “We don’t do that here. If you’re going to be taking notes in

Arkadial, your penmanship had better be legible.” Eva pulled a half-burned stick from the

periphery of the fire and knocked most of the burnt end off, leaving a decent bit of charcoal

on the end, and handed it to Sarah. Sarah set her half-eaten biscuit on the plate and put

it aside to free up space on the table, and then, feeling like a Kindergartener just learning

to write, she dated the piece of paper and wrote Eva’s name, pausing to double-check the

spelling.

“So, you were saying—you thought it was an albino wolf? Past tense?”

“Yes. From your description, it sounds almost exactly like a great-wolf. If it really is a

great-wolf, it will be something. . . ” She hunted for a word. “Unparallelled. They live up

north in the Berenwald”—Sarah looked quizzical, and Eva explained—“the frozen forests of

the north”—nod—“and the southernmost extent of their range is two hundred miles north

of here. They shouldn’t be able to survive this far south.”

Sarah’s makeshift pencil paused. “What do you mean, ‘shouldn’t be able to survive’?”

“Exactly that. Their fur is too dense. Great-wolves usually overheat and die if they are

brought here.”

“What makes you think it’s a great-wolf, then?”

“The silver hair is quite distinctive. It could be an albino, but it’s twice as large as any

wolf ever seen near here, and your description of it is pretty close to what we know of the

great-wolves.”

“How so?”

“Partly its behavior. It is very uncommon for our wolves to attack a human unless they

18

themselves are in danger. Great-wolves, however, are reknowned for their ferocity. The

pointed face, pointed teeth, and gangly legs you mention are all distinctive markers of a

great-wolf—they’re mentioned in the memoirs of a monk from several hundred years ago

who traveled extensively in the Berenwald.”

“Several hundred years? How is that possible? Veeyar is only, what, forty years old?”

Eva grimaced, shrugging. “In reality, it was written by one of Arkadial’s designers. It

was actually the design document for the Berenwald, but he wrote it in the style of a monk’s

travellogue and set it at an appropriate point in the history of Arkadial, so we refer to it

in-game as though the good Friar Utwig had actually written it. I’m told you can go to the

Berenwald and mostly retrace his steps, should you care to. He got a few things wrong—

either because the designer was deliberately making a mistake in his writing or because

things were found not to work and needed to be changed later—but he’s still considered

one of the best authorities on the Berenwald, for obvious reasons.” She paused. “Just so

you know, talking out-of-character like this—talking about Arkadial as a virtual world—is

frowned upon. It’s. . . somewhat declasse. People have been giving you a pass because you

are new, and it’s hard to correct someone without breaking character yourself, but the longer

you are here, the less they will tolerate it.”

“Oh,” said Sarah, wincing. “Oops. I’m sorry. I knew that something was up—people

have been acting strangely whenever I mention ‘veeyar’—but I didn’t know what. Should

we not be talking like this?”

Eva laughed. “No, I don’t care right now. We are in my house, alone, and we’re talking

about matters which cannot be fully discussed without acknowledging the true nature of

Arkadial.”

Sarah relaxed. “Good.” Remembering to eat, she picked up her biscuit, now quite cold,

and took a bite, washing it down with a sip of water. “I should ask you more about that, but

let’s first finish with the wolf. So.” It took her a few seconds to back-track. “The features

19

I talked about are distinctive enough that you think the animal was a great-wolf. Except

that’s impossible. Did you get to look at the body? I mean, he”—she gestured with her

head to the other room—“did kill it.”

Eva shook her head. “Peter—the innkeeper—sent a group of men out to look for the

body, following your tracks. They found the ravine your friend fell into, but not the animal’s

body—just some tufts of thick silver hair and some huge paw prints.”

“Damn. No tracks leading away?”

“Not that they could see. It was all pretty confused, though. Your friend tore up the

ground pretty badly when you pulled him up.”

“There’s no possible way that a great-wolf could survive here?” Sarah popped the final

bite of biscuit into her mouth.

“I had a brief chat with one of the designers this morning—the same one who wrote as

Friar Utwig—and he claimed that the breeding algorithms for the great-wolves specifically

prevent any mutations in the genes which code for their coat thickness, for exactly the

reason that great-wolves are dangerous animals, and they shouldn’t come marauding through

densely-populated areas. Despite that, we have something which seems an awful lot like a

great-wolf on our hands.” She snorted. “None of us know quite what to make of it.”

“Could someone have modified the breeding algorithms?”

“There are safeguards in place which should prevent it, but it is still at least potentially

possible. The developers do not know how someone would do that, though, and none of us

can think of why. The developers have promised to look into it—hopefully they will find

something. For now, we do not go into the woods unless we absolutely have to, and we lock

the doors to our houses at night.”

Sarah nodded. “That sounds wise.”

Eva sighed. “We should not have to. The Orran Woods were a safe place to live.” She

stood and started to clear away the dishes.

20

“Thank you,” said Sarah. “This has given me a lot to think about.” She rolled the

paper carefully, doing her best not to smudge the charcoal. “Could I have a. . . bit of string?”

she asked. Eva pulled a length of rough twine off a nail in the wall and handed it to her.

“Thanks. What should I do with this?” She held up her pencil.

“Just toss it back in the fire,” said Eva. Sarah did so, and the flames lept briefly.

“One last, out-of-character question—what’s the in-character way to leave Arkadial?”

Eva smiled tolerantly. “You can always force a logout, but your avatar will stick around

as a ghost for a while. To log out gracefully, you need to be out of sight of any other players

and not currently engaged in combat, as defined by how recently you lost hit-points. Most

buildings have rooms where you can go to log out.”

She showed Sarah to a small room underneath the front stairs.

“Thank you for the information,” said Sarah. “This is all very interesting.”

“You are welcome,” said Eva. “Be well.”

Sarah stepped into the room and closed the door. “Well,” she said to herself, “that was

a bit more than I bargained for,” and she logged out.

After the brief blackness of world-switching, she was back in her office. The phone was

ringing off the hook, and her inbox was, as usual, piled with papers. She silenced the phone

with a word and sat down in her chair to ease the disorientation. Twenty seconds later

another piece of paper appeared in her inbox. She glanced at the clock on her desk. “Shit,

how’d it get to be so late?”

She took the top sheet of paper out of her inbox. It was from her boss. “Sarah, yea

or nay on the Arkadial story? Confirm it with me.” She touched the word “Reply” in the

upper right-hand corner of page and the page went blank. A pen appeared in her hand, and

she scribbled “Yea” on the paper, then touched its upper right hand corner again and heard

a whooshing sound. She dropped the paper in her file drawer without really looking where

21

it went.

Sarah picked up the stack of papers in her inbox and leafed through them. Penis en-

largement, trash—press releases, trash—ad for a virtual bordello (“All real live girls! No

sex-bots!”), trash—ad for a repository of pirated 3D models and textures, trash—another

ad for penis enlargement, trash. She shoved the message announcing the weekly meeting for

TechSpecs freelancers into her appointment book, and it blended into the other papers there.

There was a stack of notices from a script one of the big newswires ran, which watched for

various keywords in the latest wire stories. Most of the stories thus flagged were mundane—

local news which had already been covered adequately—but occasionally she found things

which piqued her interest enough to investigate, and she’d gotten a couple stories that way.

Even when she didn’t find stories buried within the wire reports, they were a good way to

keep up with the current news on whatever topic she was currently researching. She added

“Arkadial” and the world’s address to her watch-list and kept leafing through her stack of

papers. When she finally finished, she touched her trash can and all the papers in it vanished

silently. Sighing, she activated her rig’s firmware menu and logged out completely.

It was dark. She felt sore. Wincing, she pulled one arm and then the other out of the

nylon straps which held them by her sides. She detached the catheter first, then found the

feeder drip and pulled it out of the stent in her arm. Last she reached behind her head

and detached the link cord from its port, gritting her teeth as the snap of disconnection was

transmitted through the bones of her skull. Fumbling blindly at the straps which held her

legs, she released them by feeling alone and swung her legs over the edge of her rig. She

stood shakily. Stumbling to the window, she took the bottle of eye-drops she knew were on

the sill and wet her eyes. She closed her eyes and raised the blind with one hand, shielding

her eyes with the other. She felt light wash over her skin. She opened her eyes a crack,

bracing herself against the pain. An orange orb floated in front of her. She blinked, then

22

again and again, tears trickling down her cheeks, until at last she could resolve, blurrily, the

street lamp outside. She found her glasses on the windowsill and put them on, and the world

came into focus.

She looked down at her rig, bathed in the soft orange glow of the streetlamp. The once-

springy plastic of its bed still retained her shape. “Dammit,” she said, “I need to get that

replaced.” The waste bag was full and the feeder bag was almost empty; she needed to pee,

badly. She took both bags and picked her way around the rig to the bathroom, leaning on

the walls of the narrow room for support. The bags went beside the already-overflowing

trashcan. She tried to shut the door behind her, grimacing as its edge scraped the bedsores

on her back, but she couldn’t make it close fully, so she let it stand cracked open as she

pulled down her thin shorts and squatted over the lidless toilet, pissing a clear stream into

the bowl. Her legs shook, and she grabbed the tank with no-less-shaky arms to steady

herself. At last she finished, and she pulled the lever as she sat down on the grimy tile floor,

watching numbly as the dirty water spiraled down, down, down. . . .

She felt her head drop, and she started awake. She fumbled the door of the bathroom

open again, crawled out to her rig, and took a foil-wrapped granola bar from the half-full

box nearby. She bit down on a corner of the packaging and ripped it open with one hand.

The bar was hard and dry, and each mouthful scratched her throat as it went down. She

finished it and tipped the crumbs at the bottom of the package clumsily into her mouth,

then tore open another and finished it almost as quickly as the first.

She drank some water from the tap in the bathroom and then stumbled into her bedroom

and fell face-down onto her mattress, which was laid out on the floor. As she pulled her thin

quilt over her body, feeling her back twinge where the fabric touched her sores, she found

herself thinking of the clean smell of straw and starched linen sheets. . . .

Sarah sat in a corner of the inn’s front room close to the fire, drinking a mug of beer

23

and watching people come and go. Occasionally she dipped her pen in an inkwell sitting

on the table and jotted a note on a piece of paper. It was dusk, and the room was full of

townspeople talking and eating. She caught snatches of the conversations around her—

“You live out that way—have you seen any trace of ’im?” asked one old man of another.

They were seated at the bar a few paces away from her, making steady progress on their

plates of corned beef hash and mashed squash. One of the men had a stout axe hanging

from his belt.

“I’ve not seen or heard so much as a pip for more’n a week now, but old Gentner thinks

there’s more ’n just the one. Said one a’ his dogs got mauled real bad by sommin’, and they

had to put ’im—”

“—heard somethin’ howling in the woods behind the outhouse last night!” said a young

girl to the boy seated beside her. The girl stabbed a sausage with her knife.

“It was only the wind, Deirdre. Besides, that man killed the wolf last week,” the boy

said, taking a swig of the beer they were sharing.

“No, Tommy, I tell you—”

Sarah felt a blast of cold air as the door at the front of the room opened, the wind from

outside beating at the fire in the hearth. She looked up to see Eva, the healer, enter, wrapped

in a heavy cloak. Sarah waved, and Eva saw her, nodded, and made her way towards where

Sarah was seated.

“—lost damn near half my flock. Brought the rest of ’em into the barn two weeks early.

If that thing’s as big as people say ’e is, ’e could take out the—”

“Eva,” Sarah said, standing. “Good to see you again.”

“Well met,” said Eva, inclining her head and smiling. “Let me get something to eat.”

She took off her cloak and laid it on the bench opposite Sarah, revealing a stout-looking

broadsword in a sheath at her side. She went to the bar and spoke to the woman there—

Mrs. Gastwirt, Sarah knew, the innkeeper’s wife. After a while Eva came back with a plate

24

of sausage, noodles, and sour red cabbage, and sat down.

“How’s Eandur?” Sarah asked.

“Better every day,” said Eva. “He’s hobbling around on crutches now.” She leaned closer

to Sarah and said, “I think he would love it if you came back for more archery lessons. He

says you’re pretty good for not having been at it very long.”

Sarah blushed. “Thank you. I’m glad to hear he’s doing better.” Her fingers absently

brushed the bow by her side—his bow, which he had leant to her. Eva cut a slice of sausage,

then piled noodles and cabbage on top of it and popped it into her mouth. Sarah leaned

over and said softly, “Is it okay if we talk out-of-character here? I’d like to ask you a few

questions about Arkadial.”

Eva looked around. “Yes,” she said. “I have heard that you’ve been asking such questions

of many people. You’re a reporter from Outside, are you not?”

Sarah nodded. “I am. I’m writing a story on Arkadial and its inhabitants. You’ve turned

out to be a fascinating lot.”

“Indeed we are.” The skin around Eva’s hazel eyes crinkled with laughter. “Indeed we

are.”

Sarah pulled out a blank piece of paper. “So, how do you deal with essentially, you know,

living here? I mean, how do you deal with never leaving?”

“A fair question.” Eva nodded. “It’s not always easy. I’m lucky that my in-game income

equates to enough real-world money that I can afford to maintain myself and my family in

a facility which takes care of my physical needs. Newer, less-established residents are less

likely to have that freedom.”

“Your family?”

“Yes, my two children and I.”

Sarah shook her head in bewilderment. “How old are they?”

“Simeon is thirteen and Gertrude is eight,” Eva said.

25

“How long have the three of you lived here?”

“I joined five years ago, very early in Arkadial’s existence, and put down the down

payment on our beds at the hosting company. . . ” She paused. “About a year and a half

after that. So, about three and a half years.”

“I’ve heard that from others before, but I still don’t quite understand it,” Sarah said.

“So your daughter has spent almost half her life in a virtual world. A computer program.

Doesn’t that worry you?”

“She’s not trapped in Arkadial. Think about it—you’ve spent a lot of the past week

logged in here. When was the last time you went outside Outside? When was the last time

you transacted any business or had a meeting for your job which happened Outside? When

was the last time you had sex Outside?”

Sarah grimaced.

“Everybody here doesn’t use a hosting company, but a lot of people do. In a lot of ways,

we’re more free than you are. We don’t have to log out to change our waste bags—we’re

paying people to do that for us. Isn’t it a jarring experience to log out?”

Sarah nodded.

There was the sound of hooves clattering to a halt outside, then a shout, and the door

slammed open, the wind making the fire gutter, and a wild-eyed man ran gasping into the

common room. “A wolf! A wolf killed my wife! Someone please come help!” His clothing

was finer than any Sarah had seen in Arkadial so far, and there was a large gash in his face.

His entire front was covered in blood, and the fur on the edges of his hood and cloak was

matted with it. He held a dagger with an ornately-inlaid gold grip in one hand, its blade red.

There was instant commotion. People surged towards the man shouting questions—“Where’s

it—?”—“What’s it look—?”—“Lord Hapsburg—?”—“Who—?”

“Hey!” Peter Gastwirt gave a great bellow, and the room fell silent. Turning to the man,

he continued in a softer tone of voice. “Milord, where did you see the wolf?”

26

The man was still breathing hard. Tears stained his cheeks. “It jumped us on the road

just past the mill. It killed Aerynne’s horse and dragged her down and killed her,” he sobbed.

“I wounded it,” he said, holding up the dagger, “but my horse bolted, and it was all I could

do to direct it here.”

Peter’s nostrils flared. “That is passing strange.” He spoke to the common room with

iron in his voice. “I want every able-bodied person here at the front of the room, now.”

Eva was already putting on her cloak. Sarah strung her bow and slung it and its quiver

on her back, saying in a low voice, “I’m not sure I’ll be much help, but I want to see this

firsthand.” Eva nodded, and they stood and made their way to the front of the room. Along

the way Eva beckoned to a young man Sarah recognized as her apprentice, and he came up

behind them.

“Gunter, Sven”—Peter was motioning to two strong-looking young men, both carrying

axes—“Stay here and guard these people. Do not let them go outside. This wolf is too close

to town. Merricks”—he looked at a teenage boy with the shadow of a beard—“ring the

bell. Warn the town of the danger. The rest of you”—Peter looked at the half-dozen people

around him—“come with me. Let’s catch ’im before ’e gets away.” Peter’s wife came up and

handed him a breastplate, a cloak, and a huge, thick sword in a scabbard, and helped him as

he deftly donned them. He kissed her, and then, looking very serious, one of his daughters

handed him a lit torch, and he lead the group outside.

The wind whipped Sarah’s cloak around her as she stepped out into the gloom. There

was neighing, and she saw a couple of Peter’s stablehands struggling to control a horse—she

assumed it was the horse of the man who had been attacked. The man himself kept close

behind Peter. They were talking, but the wind whipped their words away. Eva walked at the

rear of the group with her apprentice and a stout man carrying a torch. Sarah recognized

the latter as one of the men who had been in the inn the night she and Eandur had come

stumbling in. All three were watching the forest intently, hands on the hilts of their swords.

27

Sarah took out her bow and fitted an arrow onto its string, pointing its tip down at the

ground but keeping it ready.

They rounded the bend in the road, and Sarah heard the rushing of the mill-stream up

ahead. Maybe twenty yards down the road, their torches illuminated a crumpled figure in

the middle of the road. There was no sign of the wolf. The man Peter had called “Milord”

started to run ahead, but Peter grabbed his arm and said something gruffly, and he jerked

to a halt. The group approached the body warily, scanning the woods.

The trees sheltered them from the wind some, such that it was easier to talk. Peter knelt

by the body and brought his torch close. The woman was dressed as finely as the man, all in

fur and rich fabrics, soaked in blood. Her throat was a dark cavity, and her eyes stared wide

and glassy at them. Sarah wasn’t the only member of the group who winced and looked

away. “She’s dead,” Lord Hapsburg sobbed. Sarah glanced back and saw Peter close the

woman’s eyes. Eva nodded to her apprentice, and he stepped forward and said, “Milord, I

am Josef Lerhling, the healer’s apprentice. Come with me. We will take your wife’s body

back to town, and I will prepare it for burial.” The man could only nod.

Peter held up a hand. “Before you do that, son. . .Milord, was your wife wearing any

jewelry? Did she have any valuables on her?”

The man gibbered, eyes wide. “Is it gone?” he nearly shouted, falling to his knees and

fumbling at his wife’s belt.

“Is what gone?” asked Peter.

“The gold, the gold. . .We just sold ten acres of our hunting preserve to Duke Merri-

weather, and she had all the gold. . . .” He was sobbing again.

“Is anything else missing?” Peter asked.

The man looked at the body, checking by feel in the inconstant light of the torches. “The

locket she always carries is gone, gone, and our wedding ring, and the other baubles she

carries. Gone. . . .”

28

“Her horse is over here,” came Eva’s shout from behind them. Sarah jumped. “Its throat

is ripped out, the same as hers,” Eva continued, “but it hasn’t been touched otherwise.”

“There’s more to this than just a hungry wolf outside its normal range,” said Peter,

pursing his lips. The members of the group with torches had spread out and were scanning

the ground. Someone said something indistinct, then, louder, “Tracks!”

Sarah followed Peter as he joined the man at the side of the road. “What did you find,

Ori?” Peter asked, and the man pointed. There was a trail of blood in the packed dirt which

veered off into the underbrush. He brought his torch close to the ground. “That’s strange,”

he said.

Ori drew his breath in quickly. “Boots,” he said. He looked at the body of the man’s

wife, at the feet of the man himself, then back at the tracks. “Those aren’t riding boots,

either. Someone else was here and stripped Lady Aerynne of her valuables after she was

attacked.”

“Who would do such a thing?” her husband asked. Ori shrugged and looked down at

the dirt.

Josef came up to Peter and asked him, “Do you wish for the body to remain here any

longer?”

“No,” said Peter.

“I will take it to town then,” the young man said.

Peter nodded. “Be careful, Josef” he said sternly, but the young man was already hur-

rying back to the body where the Lord Hapsburg waited.

Ori was looking expectantly at Peter. “Do we follow the tracks?”

“I do.” Peter looked around at Sarah and the rest of the group assembled around him,

his eyes hard and his jaw firmly set. “Are you with me?”

Sarah looked sidelong at Eva and saw her looking back, and they shared a nod. Sarah

looked at the man on her other side and saw him nodding as well. A short, muscular-looking

29

woman on the other side of the group spoke for all of them. “We’re with you, Peter. All the

way.”

“All right.” Peter looked relieved.

Ori jerked his head and said “Follow me,” setting off slowly through the undergrowth.

Peter drew his weapon, a thick and brutal-looking sword with two parallel grooves down

the lower half of the blade, and followed behind Ori, and the rest of the group went behind

him in a single file. Eva motioned for Sarah to go in front of her and brought up the rear.

As Sarah moved into the forest, she heard Eva draw her sword, and she put tension on her

bowstring, as Eandur had shown her, so she could draw it quickly.

The forest was damp and dark, and the torches of the group did little to penetrate the

murk. Sarah had to walk carefully to avoid tripping on the rocks and protruding roots which

lay in her path. In its flight, the wolf had forced a low path through the underbrush, but

it was still slow going. Peter occasionally stopped and used his sword to chop at branches

which got in their way—its hefty blade made short work of all but the thickest branches.

In the dark it felt to Sarah as though the walk was taking forever. The wind sighed and

moaned in the trees overhead, and their feet crunched in the leaves and twigs that carpeted

the forest floor below. Sometimes the trees were thin enough that Sarah could look up and

see stars overhead, cold and distant. She was cold. Even through her boots, her toes were

cold, and her fingers were starting to feel painfully numb on the bowstring. Being out in

the dark was making her sleepy, too. Her cloak caught on a branch, and she scrambled,

swearing vigorously under her breath, to unhook it. In her hurry to catch back up, she

almost missed Peter hold up a hand to halt the group and only just stopped herself in time

to avoid colliding full-on with the person in front of her.

“Sorry, sorry,” she hissed.

“Hush,” Eva said from behind her.

There was a whispered conference at the front of the group, and then Peter motioned off

30

to the right, and they started walking again, angling in that direction. Soon they came to a

ravine—the same ravine, Sarah guessed, as the one she’d found Eandur in. It was narrower

here, perhaps a couple yards across, but it was still too wide to jump across, so they walked

along it for a ways until they found a place where its bank sloped more gently, and the stout

man jumped down into it with surprising grace and helped the rest of the group climb down.

Peter, encumbered by his armor, stumbled and fell hard into the ravine.

The man helped him up. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

“I am fine. Thank you, Rance,” said Peter, sounding somewhat shaken, and he climbed

unsteadily up the other side of the ravine.

Sarah shouldered her bow and stuck the arrow back in her quiver while she was waiting

for her turn to cross. When it came, she grabbed Rance’s rough hand and scrambled down

the bank, then stepped to the other side of the ravine and used the roots and rocks to climb

up the other side, wincing as they sucked what little heat remained in her hands. Once she

was up, she stuffed her hands under her arms to warm them. Eva crossed, and then Rance

climbed up himself, nodding to the two women as he slipped past to return to his place in

the group. They retraced their steps on the other side of the ravine, walking back along it

until they picked up the trail of the wolf and its keeper again. They followed it deeper into

the woods. After some time they crested a ridge, and Sarah caught a whiff of smoke. It

made her think of the fire in the inn, and she pulled her cloak closer about her. Her head

started to droop.

Eva nudged her. “Look sharp.” Sarah jumped. As they continued walking, she tried

to ignore the cold and focus on the forest around her. She caught another whiff of smoke,

stronger this time.

“Eva, do you—?”

“I smell it too. I think we’re getting close.” Sarah reached back and took the bow

off her back, then took an arrow out of her quiver and strung it on the bow, keeping it

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under her cloak so her fingers would be warm enough to shoot the bow should the need

arise. At last Peter called a halt. Ori kept moving, disappearing between the dark trees. If

anything, Sarah thought, standing still while the cold seeps into your boots and under your

cloak is worse than walking in the cold. After a while she heard something rustling and

squeaking in the undergrowth nearby. Something hooted, and then there was a noise like

the wind and the squeaking shrilled and then cut off abruptly. Sarah stamped her feet to

try to keep blood flowing to them. She kept thinking of everything that could be out in the

forest, remembering the way the wolf’s mouth glinted in the moonlight with too many teeth,

remembered the sound Eandur had made when the wolf bit him. She huddled deeper into

her cloak, shivering. She turned around and saw Eva, who was leaning on her sword and

rubbing her hands together. There was a crack from the woods and both women’s heads

jerked in that direction. Eva’s hand darted to the hilt of her sword. After a moment they

both relaxed. Sarah heard talking from the front of the group—Ori had returned and was

conferring with Peter. The latter looked up and motioned for the rest of the group to join

them. They clustered around him. Eva stood slightly apart from the group, watching the

forest but still within earshot.

“All right,” said Ori, “just over this ridge, there’s a clearing in the forest, and there’s a

man there. He’s pretty obviously not from around here, because he’s trying to keep his fire

going on the windward side of the ridge”—someone sighed in relief—“so those of you who

were worried that a local was behind this can rest more easily. He is armed and armored,

so he’s at least a potential threat, assuming he’s got any skill with his weapon at all. The

bodies of two wolves are there, too—I think they’re both dead—but there were three more

wolves there. It was really strange—they were frozen standing up like statues, but I bet he

could unfreeze them if he wanted to. They’re huge—as big as people have been saying they

are—so be careful.”

Peter said, “I want him captured alive—he should be tried by our courts, not the courts

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Outside, if at all possible. If he won’t come freely, I will need your help in restraining him

and preventing him from logging out.”

“How do we do that?” Sarah whispered to Eva.

“People can’t log out when they’re within eyesight of others, remember?” Eva replied.

“Right,” Sarah said.

“Sarah,” Peter said, “stay at the top of the ridge. Your arrows will do the most good

from there. And don’t shoot if we get into melee combat—you might hit one of us!”

Sarah nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said, smiling.

Peter motioned for silence, then lead the group forward. The ground underfoot started

sloping upwards. Eva, sword at the ready, came abreast of Sarah. She fixed Sarah with

an earnest look and said, “Be careful. Take no unnecessary risks. We’re not heroes here.”

Sarah nodded, and Eva swept past her. Sarah shivered, heart pounding and fingers tight on

her bowstring as she followed the group the last dozen feet over the ridgeline. The trees were

thinner here. A small fire smoldered twenty feet away on the opposite edge of the clearing,

and in its light Sarah could see a man poking at a pot in its coals with a stick, his sword

leaning against a log nearby. She looked at the forest behind him and her breath caught in

her throat—there were three silver wolves as big as small ponies standing, staring at her,

jaws gaping, off a little to the left of the man’s cook-fire. When they didn’t move after

several seconds, she let her breath out slowly. If anything, she thought, they were larger

than the one Eandur had killed. She couldn’t see the bodies of the two wolves which had

been killed.

Sarah stopped just over the ridgeline and raised her bow, sighting at the wolves. The

rest of the group jogged ahead of her down the slope.

“Hello, stranger! What brings you to these woods?” called out Peter as he approached.

The man looked up and dropped his stick, scrambling for his sword.

“I am. . . just a traveller” the man said shakily.

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Peter stopped some feet from him, and the rest of the group formed up behind him,

giving Sarah a line of sight to both the man and the wolves. “A traveller with a trio of fine

wolves, I see,” said Peter. “You are wanted for the murder of the Lady Aerynne Hapsburg

and several others. Will you come of your own accord?”

Sarah saw a veeyar interface flash in front of the man, and he did something complicated

which she didn’t fully catch, but she knew the intent of it, and she loosed an arrow at one

of the wolves before it bounded forward. The beast yelped as the arrow stuck in its side,

but it still leapt towards the group. The man raised his sword and dropped to a fighting

crouch. Peter roared and charged the wolf furthest from Sarah, bringing his sword in a tight

arc to cleave its shoulder, and the wolf’s roar joined his as it went down. Then the battle

joined in earnest. Eva clashed with the man, parrying his blows. Ori and the short woman

harried one of the wolves, but the other wolf took a swipe at Ori, and he fell to the side.

Even downed, the first wolf managed to grab Peter’s leg in its jaws and bite down. Rance

was pinned by the wolf Sarah had wounded, and it went for his neck and tore. The short

woman stuck a sword in its side and it squalled terribly, its mouth dripping blood. The man

fighting Eva managed to nick Eva’s cheek, and she gave ground. Sarah couldn’t see Peter

any more, so she moved down the ridge, hoping for a better view of the battle. The second

wolf bit the short woman, catching her upper arm, and she screamed and tried to rip herself

from its jaws. Ori, on his knees, took a swipe at the wolf’s front leg and cut it, and it let

her go. Hobbling on three legs, it turned on him and tried to bite him as he drove his sword

up into its chest. The force of its turn knocked Ori back, his sword embedded in the wolf.

The man fighting Eva was tiring, and she feinted and snuck her blade under his to open a

shallow gash on his thigh. He winced. She pressed her advantage, pushing him back toward

the forest. One of the wolves went down, the short woman’s sword in its side. Ori picked

himself up and drew his dagger, circling the other wolf. It snarled and jumped at him, and

he leapt to the side, then pivoted on one foot and swung his dagger at the wolf’s side. The

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short woman brought her sword down on the back of its neck, and it collapsed. Eva had the

man’s back against a tree. Sarah could see the light of the fire reflected off the sweat on his

forehead. He took a wild swing at Eva. She parried the blow, and his sword flew from his

hands. Her follow-through cut a deep gash in his chest. She lunged forward, pressing him

against the tree, her sword at his throat.

“Now will you come?” she asked through clenched teeth.

Sarah released a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. The man’s nod must

have been too small for Sarah to see. Eva said, “Turn around,” and he did so. She produced

a length of rope from her pouch, using it to bind his hands behind him. Sarah walked further

down from the ridge. The stench of death hung like a shroud over the tangled bodies. She

saw Peter on the far side of the clearing—the short woman was tending his leg. Ori pulled

Rance’s body out from under the carcass of one of the wolves. His head lolled back, his

throat clotted red—he was very clearly dead. Sarah shuddered. She found the wolf she had

shot, and pulled her arrow out of its side. As she did so, it whimpered a little. She went to

its head, and its eyes looked back at her, glassy in the firelight.

“This one’s still alive,” she said.

“Shoot it,” said Ori.

She strung the arrow on her bowstring and stood over the animal. It whined and moved

its legs a little as her shadow fell on it. She released the arrow, and it embedded itself in the

animal’s head. The wolf went still.

“Well, would you look at that,” said Ori. Sarah turned to look at him and saw him

holding up a leather pouch, the man’s pack in front of him. When he shook the pouch, it

jangled. “It’s embossed with the Hapsburg crest.” Sarah saw Eva smirk. Ori stood guard

over the man for a bit while Eva tended to the group’s wounds, bandaging the short woman’s

shoulder and double-checking her work on Peter’s leg. She wrapped a length of cloth around

the chest of the man whom they had defeated to staunch the bleeding from the wound she’d

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given him.

Everyone was quiet as they marched back to the inn. Peter was too big for any of them

to carry, so Ori supported Peter as he hopped on his uninjured leg . The short woman

walked with her sword pressed against the small of the man’s back, and Sarah and Eva

carried Rance’s body. Sarah couldn’t stop seeing the wolf tear Rance’s throat out, again and

again, no matter how hard she tried—he went down, the wolf on top of him, and the wolf

reached down and bit, blood blooming where the its teeth broke his skin. Then its powerful

jaws closed with a snap around his neck and cut off his scream, and its head pulled back,

and there was a cracking, ripping sound as flesh and cartilege were torn asunder. The wolf

reared as the man gurgled beneath it, his blood running down its lower jaw, and the strings

of flesh between its teeth flew in all directions as the woman stabbed it. Sarah heard its ribs

break, and it screamed. . . Sarah winced and closed her eyes, opening them again quickly to

watch her feet on the uneven ground. Her heart was still pounding, she realized, and she

felt a strange hollowness—probably the after-effects of the adrenaline. That was intense, she

thought. I’m not sure I liked that. Ori helped them cross the ravine—with his injured leg,

Peter took extra time.

The walk back to town seemed even longer to Sarah than the walk to the man’s camp.

When they finally emerged onto the road, they could see the faint glow of dawn above the

treetops. The man hadn’t said a word the whole trip. Which was probably clever, Sarah

thought. Anything you say can and will be used against you. . . . She wasn’t yet quite ready

to think about interviewing him, the terror of the night still so fresh and heavy upon her. It’s

just like real life, isn’t it? she thought. Even here, one person can break the rules and fuck

things up for other people. Soon they rounded the bend in the road and saw the inn ahead,

smoke rising in a thin ribbon from its chimney. “What are we going to do with Rance’s

body?” Sarah asked.

“We will have to ask his wife, but I suspect she will want to burn it at sundown. That

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is the Ranger custom. There is an empty stall in the stable where he can be put for now,”

said Peter, his voice heavy with grief. Sarah noticed for the first time that his cheeks were

wet.

The short woman found two early risers at the inn to accompany her and the man to the

Watch, and they disappeared further into town. Peter hobbled with Ori into the kitchens.

After they had left the body where Peter had indicated, Sarah and Eva made their way to

the common room. Peter had plates of food waiting for them. He had Ernest pour four tall

steins of beer for the group, and they ate in silence for a while.

Sarah’s stomach was still queasy, but the smell of the food and the beer slowly brought

back her appetite. After a while she asked a question which had been bugging her. “So, is

Rance really dead?” The other three people looked at her strangely. “In real life, I mean.”

Eva gave her head a little shake. “No, he’s not.” She gave a small smile. “Dying in

Arkadial can’t kill you in real life—none of that science-fictional nonsense.”

“Oh. . . so, he’ll come back?”

“Not necessarily,” said Ori. “Rance is permanently dead—no necromancy or zombies,

either. But a lot of people who die do create new characters. Arkadial’s a big place—if

they go far enough away, it’s entirely possible that no one they knew here in the Orran

Woods will ever see them again, for the rest of their real-world lives. Their new characters

should at least look differently. Maybe take up a new profession. If they were to meet one of

us, we probably wouldn’t recognize them, and they should act as though we were complete

strangers to them.”

“Whoa,” said Sarah. “That would be hard.”

Eva half-smiled. “Sometimes you can still tell. There’s a man—a merchant—who comes

through here every few years who I’m pretty sure is the same person as my husband. He’s

never admitted to it, and he does his best to hide it, but he’s got a couple quirks which are

exactly the same. It’s little things—the way he holds a beer stein, the way he talks when

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he’s excited, a particular place on his lower back he scratches. I think he comes around here

every so often to see me and see how our kids are doing. Never once has he even so much as

hinted that he’s the same person, but I’m pretty sure of it.”

“Wouldn’t that make death even harder to deal with, since the person could come back,

but chooses not to?” Sarah asked.

Eva shrugged. “It does and it doesn’t. It’s not so much a matter of choice—if he was

too obviously the same person, he would be ostracized by the rest of the town.”

“Suspension of disbelief, again, like talking out of character?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” said Eva. “The consistency of the world is more important than any one person

in it.”

“I suppose,” said Sarah, not totally convinced. She finished the last bits of food on her

plate and stood, yawning as she stretched. “Thank you all,” she said. “This has been a

very interesting week. And definitely more. . . eventful than most. I think I’ve got to go file

a story now.”

Her three friends nodded.

“Sarah,” said Peter, speaking for the first time. “Will we be seeing you around the Orran

Woods in the future?”

“I’m not sure.” Sarah looked at him, pausing to consider the question. After a moment,

she said, seeming almost surprised, “I think you will. . . I think you will.”

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