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wanting to embarrass himself further by trying to pursue a clumsy servitor, Peklo rises and stalks back to his men. They’re silent now.
    â€œSomething funny?” Peklo says in a deadly calm voice.
    He clubs his fist into the face of the one who shouted out that remark about Peklo looking like a baby.
    â€œAny other jokers?” Peklo growls.
    Nearly all of them, including the man he struck, now spitting blood and a tooth onto the stones of the courtyard, turn away to avoid his angry glare.
    The only one still smiling is the blond hulk, who fingers his beard as he looks up at his companion. He clearly views himself as Peklo’s equal. Now that I think of it, when the baron arrived, Spadebeard was the one who stayed closest to Temny’s side.
    â€œWhere’s your lass?” Spadebeard asks with an insolent chuckle.
    â€œShut up, Smotana,” Peklo snarls. “We deal with them all. Later.”
    Perhaps they don’t know I can hear them from where I lean against the castle wall, a spear’s throw away. My hearing is much sharper than most.
    â€œTrue enough,” spade-bearded Smotana agrees. “The baron has promised us the lot of them, and our master always keeps his word. But if you like, we could seek out that old bald fool and break his neck now.”
    Peklo nods his head. “ Jah. But I settle the score, not you. I break his bones good.”
    I doubt it. Though Peklo may keep his eye out for any glimpse of the fool who dowsed him, there’ll be no score settling today. No one is better than Georgi at remaining unseen.
    â€œThat lass looked tasty,” Smotana says. “And there’s at least one or two more in there, or I miss my guess. How long will it be until we get the go-ahead?”
    â€œWhen the master and our, ah, young mistress grow strong enough,” Peklo says. His voice is unsettlingly calm now.
    â€œAh,” Smotana says. He shows his teeth in an even wider grin and nods his head as he continues to stroke his beard. “Of course.”
    What little amusement I was feeling at the way Georgi handled Peklo had now left me. I slip back around the corner with a sick feeling in my gut.
    Are we all doomed?

PAVOL’S LEGEND
Sest
    ON THE SEASONS flowed. The snows of Zma melted into the sweet promise of Jar, then the long hot days of Leto, until finally again it was Jesen, the time when the leaves turn and fall from the trees, the very season in which the boy now known by all as Pavol had been born.
    And like the small trees in the forest, he had drawn strength from the passing of seasons and years. Though he was still slender, there was no mistaking the strength in his arms grown hard-sinewed from the woods work that was his daily labor. His years upon the earth now numbered sixteen and he was taller than most men.
    As he had grown and changed, something else in the land had done the same. First as a flicker like foxfire in the night, then as a glow like a flame near burned out, the light of the Silver Lands had begun to show itself again, that fifth direction that had vanished on the death of his parents was returning. Not everyone could see it, but it was there once more.
    Baba Marta was the first to point it out to him. Then she told a story of the Silver Lands, how those who lived their long lives there were pleased when humans lived in peace, how they watched the lands of mortal folk but did not interfere—though now and then a lord or lady of Faerie might fall in love, true love with a mortal. Then, if that love was returned, the couple had a hard choice to make. If they would live together, one must pledge to give up all that had been known and familiar before and go to that true love’s land to share long life or swift mortality by his or her side.
    â€œWhat if they have children?” Pavol asked.
    Baba Marta smiled at that. Was her smile because his question proved to her how truly her boy was now becoming a man? Or was there a