Fiddler Fair by Mercedes Lackey This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. Copyright © 1998 by Mercedes Lackey “Fiddler Fair,” in Magic in Ithkar 3 (Tor 1989) “Balance” and “Dragon’s Teeth,” in Bardic Voices One (Hypatia Press 1988) (HC), in Spellsingers (DAW 1988) (PB); “Dance Track,” in Alternate Heroes, Mike Resnick, ed. (Bantam Spectra 1989); “Last Rights,” in Dinosaur Fantastic, Martin Greenberg, ed. (DAW 1993); “Jihad,” in Alternate Warriors, Mike Resnick, ed. (Tor 1993); “Dumb Feast,” in Christmas Ghosts, Mike Resnick, ed. (DAW 1993); “Small Print” in Deals with the Devil, Mike Resnick, ed. (DAW 1994); “The Cup and the Caldron,” in Grails of Light (DAW); “Once and Future,” in Excalibur!, Martin Greenberg, ed. (Warner Aspect 1995); “Enemy of My Enemy,” Friends of the Horseclans, Robert Adams, ed. (NAL 1989) All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. A Baen Books Original Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471 ISBN: 0-671-87866-2 Cover art by Clyde Caldwell First printing, April 1998 Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH Printed in the United States of America World eBook Library Consortia Baen Free Library Science Fiction eBook Collection The World eBook Library, www.worldLibrary.net is an effort to preserve and disseminate literature, serials, bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works in a number of languages and countries around the world. Our mission is to serve the public, aid students and educators by providing public access to the world's most complete collection of electronic books on-line as well as offer a variety of services and resources that support and strengthen the instructional programs of education, elementary through post baccalaureate studies. *This eBook has certain copyright implications you should read.* This book is copyrighted by the Baen Publishing Enterprises, http://www.baen.com/library. With permission copies may be distributed so long as such copies (1) are for your or others personal use only, and (2) are not distributed or used commercially. Prohibited distribution includes any service that offers this file for download or commercial distribution in any form, (See complete disclaimer http://worldlibrary.net/Copyrights.html) or email
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[email protected] How I Spent My Summer Vacation And every other free minute for five straight years After any number of requests to put all our short stories together in one place, the idea began to take on some mer i t. When Larry and I looked into the idea we discovered that we had a lot of other short fiction; about ten years’ worth. Ten years? Unbelievable as it seemed at the time, I found the very first story I ever had published (I had sold one story before that, but it wasn’t published until the following month). Fantasy Book magazine, September 1985. The story was “Turna