Part 1 (1/2)
Four Summoners Tales.
Jonathan Maberry.
Contents.
Summoning.
An Introduction vii.
Suffer the Children.
Kelley Armstrong 1.
Pipers.
Christopher Golden 79.
A Bad Season for Necromancy.
David Liss.
151.
Alive Day.
Jonathan Maberry 229.
Summoning.
An Introduction.
Whenever writers come together, ideas are born. In July of 2011, Christopher Golden and Jonathan Maberry sat in a Chinese restaurant in Rhode Island, discussing the nature of story and of plot. It has been said that there are only seven basic plots, and that each and every story can be reduced to fit within the parameters of one of those fundamental structures. While the authors of Four Summoner's Tales could debate that a.s.sertion for eons, that dinner conversation brought Golden and Maberry into a tangential discussion about diverse works that share the same root plot, and how the quality and value of a story comes in the details and in the approach of the individual writer.
In other words, it's all in the execution.
Wouldn't it be interesting, they mused, to give a group of very different writers the same short, simple premise-just a.
viii Summoning: An Introduction.
single sentence, without any other parameters-and see what the result would be? Long before the fortune cookies arrived, musing turned into planning, and not long thereafter came the single-sentence premise from which the authors would work: A stranger comes to town, offering to raise the townsfolk's dearly departed from the dead-for a price. It was agreed that the authors could interpret ”stranger,” ”town,” and ”raise” any way they liked.The stories could be set in the past, present, or future, in a fantasy world or the real one, and be based on science or magic.
The novella form was chosen as the best platform for this endeavor, long enough for plots to be fully explored and brought to fruition, but short enough to still be collected side by side. At novella length, four seemed the perfect number . . . thus, Four Summoner's Tales.
The only question that remained was who would pen the other two novellas, but Maberry and Golden found themselves in swift agreement, quickly enlisting Kelley Armstrong and David Liss, both renowned for their talent and imagination. Soon, the ideas began to coalesce . . .
SUMMONER'S.
IV.
Suffer the Children.
Kelley Armstrong.
Addie Addie slid through the forest as silent as a lynx, her beaded moccasins m.u.f.fling her footfalls.The young stag wasn't as quiet. When it vanished from sight, she could track it by the crackle of autumn leaves under its hooves. Finally, it stopped to feed and she closed the gap between them until she could see it, small antlers lowered as it tugged at a patch of gra.s.s not yet brown and withered.
Addie eased the bow from her back, notched an arrow, and took aim. The buck's head jerked up. She loosed the arrow, but it was too late-the buck was in flight. Addie fired a second but too quickly, spurred by frustration and anger, the arrow lodging in a nearby maple.
When the crash of the fleeing deer subsided, she peered around the dawn-lit forest. Something had startled the beast and it hadn't been her. She would never have been so careless.
Addie pulled her coat tighter against the chill.The jacket was too small for her now-she'd grown nearly a half foot in the past year-but she refused to let Preacher and Sophia buy one from the traders. She wanted to make one exactly the same way, doing everything from killing the deer and mink to curing the leather to sewing the cloth.There was not another twelve-yearold in Chestnut Hill who could claim the same. Not a girl of any age. Her parents may not have given her much, but they'd taught her to look after herself.
They'd also taught her-unintentionally-how to sense danger. So now, after the buck had bolted, she went still and listened. She paid particular attention to noises from the north, upwind of the deer, presuming it was a scent that had startled it. After a few moments, she heard the tramp of boots on a well-packed path.