“Brushwood shelters aren’t what we need in this kind of weather,” Andre said gloomily, rubbing his stiff, chapped hands. “Ow, ow, ow, I’m cold.”
“It’s clearing off,” Luz said, looking up through a broad gap in the trees, where their side-valley opened out into the river gorge; above the steep farther shore of the Grayrock, the Eastern Range glittered hugely, dark blue and white.
“For now. It’ll snow again.”
Andre looked frail, hunched there by the fire that burned almost invisible in the fresh morning sunlight: frail, cold, discouraged. Luz, much rested by the day without walking, felt a freshness of spirit like the morning light; she felt a great love for Andre, the patient, anxious man. She squatted down beside him by the fire, and patted his shoulder. “This is a good place, isn’t it,” she said.
He nodded, hunched up, still rubbing his sore, red hands.
“Andre.”
He grunted.
“Maybe we should be building cabins, not shelters.”
“Here?”
“It’s a good place … .”
He looked around at the high red trees, the stream rushing loudly down toward the Grayrock, the sunlit, open slopes to the south, the great blue heights eastward. “It’s all right,” he said grudgingly. “Plenty of wood and water, anyhow. Fish, coneys, we could last out the winter here.”
“Maybe we should? While there’s time to put up cabins?”
Hunched up, his arms hanging between his knees, Andre mechanically rubbed his hands. She watched him, her hand still on his shoulder.
“It would suit me,” he said at last.
“If we’ve come far enough …”
“We’ll have to get everybody together, agree … .” He looked at her; he put his arm up around her shoulders. They squatted side by side, linked, rocking a little on their heels, close to the quivering half-seen fire. “I’ve had enough running,” he said. “Have you?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know. I wonder …”
“What?”
Andre stared at the sunlit fire, his face, drawn and weatherbeaten, flushed by the heat.
“They say when you’re lost, really lost, you always go in a circle,” he said. “You come back to where you started from. Only you don’t always recognize it.”
“This isn’t the City,” Luz said. “Nor the Town.”
“No. Not yet.”
“Not ever,” she said, her brows drawn down straight and harsh. “This is a new place, Andre. A beginning place.”
“God willing.”
“I don’t know what God wants.” She put out her free hand and scratched up a little of the damp, half-frozen earth, and squeezed it in her palm. “That’s God,” she said, opening her hand on the half-molded sphere of black dirt. “That’s me. And you. And the others. And the mountains. We’re all … it’s all one circle.”
“You’ve lost me, Luz.”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about. I want to stay here, Andre.”
“Then I expect we will,” Andre said, and thumped her between the shoulders. “Would we ever have started, I wonder, if it hadn’t been for you?”
“Oh, don’t say that, Andre—”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“I have enough on my conscience without that. I have—If I—”
“This is a new place, Luz,” he said very gently. “The names are new here.” She saw there were tears in his eyes. “This is where we build the world,” he said, “out of mud.”
Eleven-year-old Asher came toward Luz, who was down on the bank of the Grayrock gathering freshwater mussels from the icy, weed-fringed rocks of a backwater. “Luz,” he said when he was near enough not to have to speak loudly. “Look.”
She was glad to straighten up and get her hands out of the bitter cold of the water. “What have you got there?”
“Look,” the boy said in a whisper, holding out his open hand. On the palm sat a little creature like a shadow-colored toad with wings. Three gold pinhead eyes stared unwinking, one at Asher, two at Luz.
“A wotsit.”
“I never saw one close up before.”
“He came to me. I was coming down here with the baskets, and he flew into one, and I put out my hand and he got onto it.”
“Would he come to me?”
“I don’t know. Hold out your hand.”
She put her hand beside Asher’s. The wotsit trembled and for a moment blurred into a mere vibration of fronds or feathers; then, with a hop or flight too quick for the eye to follow, it transferred itself to Luz’s palm, and she felt the grip of six warm, tiny, wiry feet.
“O you are beautiful,” she said softly to the creature, “you are beautiful. And I could kill you, but I couldn’t keep you, not even hold you … .”
“If you put them in a cage, they die,” the child said.
“I know,” Luz said.
The wotsit was now turning blue, the pure, azure blue of the sky between the peaks of the Eastern Range on days, like this day, of winter sunlight. The three gold pinhead eyes glittered. The wings, bright and translucent, shot out, startling Luz; her hand’s slight movement launched the little creature on its upward glide, out over the breadth of the river, eastward, like a fleck of mica on the wind.
She and Asher filled the baskets with the heavy, bearded, black mussel shells, and trudged back up the pathway to the settlement.
“Southwind!” Asher cried, tugging his heavy basket along, “Southwind! There’s wotsits here! One came to me!”
“Of course there are,” Southwind said, trotting down the path to help them with their load. “What a lot you got! Oh, Luz, your poor hands, come on, the cabin’s warm, Sasha brought a new load of wood in on the cart. Did you think there wouldn’t be wotsits here? We’re not that far from home!”
The cabins—nine so far, three more half-built—stood on the south bank of the stream where it widened out into a pool under the branches of a giant single ringtree. They took their water from the little falls at the head of the pool, bathed and washed at the foot of it where it narrowed before its long plunge down to the Grayrock. They called the settlement Heron, or Heron Pool, for the pair of gray creatures who lived on the farther shore of the stream, untroubled by the presence of the human beings, the smoke of their fires, the noise of their work, their coming and going, the sound of their voices. Elegant, long-legged, silent, the herons went about their own business of food gathering on the other side of the wide, dark pool; sometimes they paused in the shallows to gaze at the people with clear, quiet, colorless eyes. Sometimes, on still cold evenings before snow, they danced. As Luz and Southwind and the child turned aside toward their cabin, Luz saw the herons standing near the roots of the great tree, one poised to watch them, the other with its narrow head turned back as it gazed into the forest. “They’ll dance tonight,” she said, under her breath; and she stopped a moment, standing with her heavy load on the path, still as the herons; then went on.
STARSCAPE
Let the journey begin …
From the Two Rivers
The Eye of the World: Part One
by Robert Jordan
Ender’s Game
by Orson Scott Card
Mairelon the Magician
by Patricia C. Wrede
Ender’s Shadow
by Orson Scott Card
Orvis
by H. M. Hoover
Prince Ombra
by Roderick MacLeish
A College of Magics
by Caroline Stevermer
Deep Secret
by Diana Wynne Jones
Hidden Talents
by David Lubar
Obernewtyn
by Isobelle Carmody
This Time of Darkness
by H. M. Hoover
Red Unicorn
by Tanith Lee
The Billion Dollar Boy
by Charles Sheffield
In th
e Land of the Lawn Weenies
by David Lubar
To the Blight
The Eye of the World: Part Two
by Robert Jordan
The Cockatrice Boys
by Joan Aiken
The Whispering Mountain
by Joan Aiken
The Garden Behind the Moon
by Howard Pyle
The Dark Side of Nowhere
by Neal Shusterman
The Magician’s Ward
by Patricia C. Wrede
Pinocchio
by Carlo Collodi
Another Heaven, Another Earth
by H. M. Hoover
The Wonder Clock
by Howard Pyle
The Shadow Guests
by Joan Aiken
Song in the Silence
by Elizabeth Kerner
Putting Up Roots
by Charles Sheffield
The Farseekers
by Isobelle Carmody
Starswarm
by Jerry Pournells
A School for Sorcery
by E. Rose Sabin
Orson Scott Card
ENDER’S GAME
Winner of the Hugo Award
Winner of the Nebula Award
An American Library Association
“100 Best Books for Teens”
Ender Wiggin has hardly had a childhood when representatives of the world government recruit him for military training at a facility called Battle School. A genius, Ender is considered a master strategist. His skills will be necessary if the Earth can repel another attack by alien Buggers. In simulated war games Ender excels. But how will he do in real battle conditions? After all, Battle School is just a game, right?
“Superb.”—Booklist
ENDER’S SHADOW
2000 Alex Award Winner
An American Library Association
“Top 10 Best Book”
Life on the streets is tough. But if Bean has learned anything it’s how to survive. Not with his fists. Bean is way too small to fight. But with his brain. Like his colleague and rival Ender Wiggin, Bean has been chosen to enroll in Battle School. And like Ender, Bean will be called upon to perform an extraordinary service. A parallel novel to the extraordinary Ender’s Game.
“An exceptional work.”—School Library Journal
H. M. Hoover
ORVIS
An American Booksellers
“Pick of the Lists”
Parents Choice Children’s Media
Award for Literature
When Toby stumbles upon an abandoned robot named Orvis, she knows exactly how he feels. No one wants her either. With Orvis and her only friend Thaddeus—another lonely castoff—Toby sets off across the vast Empty in search of sanctuary.
“A first-rate adventure.”—Parents Choice
ANOTHER HEAVEN, ANOTHER EARTH
An American Library Association
“101 Best of the Best Books in the Past 25 Years”
“Superb!”—The Times Educational Supplement
Only a handful of residents remain on Xilan from the original crew that colonized the planet centuries before. Including Gareth. When a rescue mission arrives from Earth, however, Gareth must make a difficult decision: accept their help and abandon the only past she has ever known … or cling to the past and risk extinction.
“A real blockbuster of a novel. As readable as it is wise.”
—The Junior Bookshelf
David Lubar
HIDDEN TALENTS
American Library Association
“Best Books for Young Adults”
“Wondrously surprising, playful, and heartwarming.”—VOYA
“Sure to be popular.”—Kliatt
Martin Anderson doesn’t like being called a loser. But when he ends up at Edgeview Alternative School he has to face the truth: Edgeview is the end of the line. But he discovers something remarkable about himself and his friends: each has a special … hidden … talent.
IN THE LAND OF THE LAWN WEENIES and other Misadventures
“Four stars!”—Chicago Tribune
“Really off the wall stories. They’re funny thrillers that scare you out of your seat, but have you laughing all the time.”
—Walter The Giant Storyteller
“Clever, creepy, and full of surprises.”—James Howe
Kids can be such monsters. Literally. From the award-winning author of Hidden Talents, two remarkable short story collections—Kidzilla and The Witch’s Monkey—together for the first time. Each hilarious and harrowing.
Roderick MacLeish
PRINCE OMBRA
“Reminiscent of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Highly recommended.”—Library Journal
“Whirls the reader along.”—Chicago Sun Times
Bentley has secret powers. And he’s going to need them. Bentley is a hero—the thousand and first to be exact—in a long line of heroes that has stretched all the way back to antiquity. Heroes like Arthur and Hercules. And now: Bentley. One day when Bentley is grown he will be that hero. What Bentley doesn’t know is that his “one day” is today.
Caroline Stevermer
A COLLEGE OF MAGICS
“Strikingly set, pleasingly peopled, and cleverly plotted.”
—Kirkus Reviews (pointer)
“Delightful!”—The Washington Post
Teenager Faris Nallaneen—heir to the dukedom of Galazon—is shunted off to Greenlaw College so that her evil uncle can lay claim to her inheritance. But Greenlaw is not just any school as Faris—and her uncle—will soon discover.
Joan Aiken
THE WHISPERING MOUNTAIN
Winner of the Guardian Prize for Fiction
“An enchanting, original story.”
—The Times of London
In an effort to recover the magical Harp of Teirtu, Owen and his friend Arabis are plunged into a hair-raising adventure of intrigue, kidnapping, exotic underground worlds, savage beasts … even murder.
THE SHADOW GUESTS
“Writing seems to be as natural to Joan Aiken as breathing; her imagination is as untrammeled as ever, the precise construction of the astonishing plot lends conviction, and her style is as witty and sparkling with images.”
—The Horn Book
After the mysterious disappearance of both his mother and older brother, Cosmo is sent away to live with his eccentric mathematician aunt. But things take a weird twist when Cosmo is visited by ghosts from the past. Ghosts who claim to need his help fighting an ancient deadly curse!
THE COCKATRICE BOYS
Illustrated by Gris Grimley
VOYA “Outstanding Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Books of the Year”
A plague of monsters has invaded England and Dakin and Sauna come to the rescue! A rollicking comic masterpiece.
Patricia C.Wrede
MAIRELON THE MAGICIAN
“Delightful … Wrede’s confection will charm readers.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A wonderful fantasy/mystery. Highly recommended.”
—VOYA
When street urchin Kim is caught in the act stealing, her accuser surprises her by suggesting she become his apprentice. An apprentice to a magician!
THE MAGICIAN’S WARD
“A sure bet for fans of Philip Pullman’s Ruby in the Smoke series.”
—VOYA
Several wizards of Kim’s acquaintance have mysteriously disappeared. And it’s up to Kim to find out why.
lsobelle Carmody
OBERNEWTYN
Book One in The Obernewtyn Chronicles
“A major work of fantastic imagination.”
—Lloyd Alexander