Opening Acts by SFnovelists

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  "You will go," the queen had said to Elen a day or an eon ago, far away in Ymbria.

  Her gown was the color of the night sky, scattered with gems like stars, and her crown was set with a white stone like the moon. She was tall and dark and terrible, and her will was as strong as cold iron.

  Elen was dusty and muddy and covered with a spring mantle of horsehair; her thick black hair was snarled half out of its braid. The queen's summons had brought her up from the stables with no time to stop or bathe or make herself presentable.

  She faced the royal majesty with great respect and perfectly equal stubbornness. "I can't."

  "This is not a matter of can or will," said the queen. "This is must."

  Elen shook her head. "No. I won't go."

  The queen took off her crown and laid it on a table. Its weight had marked her forehead deeply, but when she rubbed it, Elen could see that the ache came from deeper inside. "Why, daughter? This has been your dream since you were old enough to clamber up on a pony. Now you can have it. You can travel to Earth, live in the House of the Star, spend your days with and care for and even, gods willing, ride the only creatures that can travel safely along the worldroads. Isn't that what you've always wanted?"

  "I want to be a worldrider," Elen said. "I want it with all my heart. But if I do what you are trying to make me do, that's not what I'll get. You're trying to pretend it's about the horses, but it's not. It's about the same war that has torn us apart for thousands of years, and it will be just as useless as all the other attempts to make it stop. I'm to go to Earth, meet the king's son from Caledon, and let myself be forced to marry him. The worldrunners are just a bribe to get me there."

  The queen sank down into the chair beside the table. The silk of her gown rustled; the jewels and the pearls rattled against the carved wood of the chair. "No one will force you to marry anyone," she said. "This invitation comes from Earth. You only need to go, join a group of young people in the House of the Star, ride and care for their horses, live on Earth for a season, and see what comes of it. That's all. How is that so difficult?"

  Elen shook her head so hard her braid gave way altogether and sent her hair tumbling down over her back and shoulders. "Don't you understand? It can't be that simple. Friendship, Earth said. Mutual understanding. Liking, if possible, between royal offspring of the two most relentless enemies in all the worlds. Doesn't that sound lovely? Doesn't it sound too easy for words?"

  "It doesn't sound easy at all," the queen said. "It sounds like a challenge worthy of the greatest of our heroes: to meet a Caledonian face to face, and learn to forget our whole long history of hatred, and make a friend. Horses are the key, says the Master of the Star. Earth is neutral ground, and the horses from whose stock the worldrunners come are creatures of such power and wonder in their own right that even he can't tell us what they may decide to do. But he is willing to trust them. And so, perforce, are we."

  Horses of any kind, let alone worldrunners, were a great lure and attraction, and Elen wanted them desperately. But this was too cruel a lie for her to bear. She cried out against it. "But that's not true! There's got to be something else they're not saying. Some thing they want, that we'll find out if I get there. Some plan they're keeping secret. You know what it has to be. They want Ymbria and Caledon bound together- and how does that ever get done? By royal marriage. I'd rather not have the horses at all than have them for a few days and then see them taken away, either because I've been hauled off into Caledon, or because I refuse and have been sent back home, and the worldroads have been closed forever to anyone from Ymbria."

  "Caledon, too," the queen said, "if it comes to that. Which I hope it will not. But, Elen, you must understand. This is the last chance. The other worlds along the roads have had enough of our fighting that spills over onto them and does them such terrible damage. Faerie itself has lost patience. The Horned King and his deadly Hunt would have closed us off well before this if Earth had not spoken for us. We need what the roads bring us: trade and knowledge and the arts and magic and medicines that heal our sick and nourish our land and make our crops grow richer and stronger to feed our people. Without those things, we wither and die."

  "I know that!" Elen said. "I just can't do this. I can't. I'm not the kind of person you need. Why don't you send Margali? All she cares about is boys and dresses and more boys. She would be perfectly happy to attach herself to a royal Caledonian, as long as he has a pretty face and a large fortune."

  "Elen!" the queen said. Her tone was like a slap. "Horses make your sister ill, and horses are a requirement. You love them more than anyone else in this family. I had thought you loved Ymbria, too."

  Those were terrible words. Elen flinched.

  "You leave in the morning," her mother said. "Be ready to ride."

  Elen was dismissed. She opened her mouth to refuse, but what could she say that she had not already said?

  People were clamoring at the door. The royal council was meeting- again. Messengers were lined up six deep, each with an urgent dispatch that the queen must answer immediately. Elen was keeping them all from getting their work done.