Now Reynaldo must convince one Songbird to return. Just one. Or he will use devastating magic to make sure she never sings from her heart again.

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Songbirds

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The rain was hard, and cold, the village a welcome sight. Reynaldo had been riding for days without seeing any signs of civilization—and he had thought that good. If he were to find the Songbirds, he believed he would find them in this wilderness at the very edge of the kingdom.

But even the best hunter welcomed a respite after days of unrelenting rain. The village was as dismal as the weather: small hovels with little more than a door, the occasional house, and finally, at the end of town, an inn that looked like it had seen better days.

At least it had a stable. He dismounted and looked for a stable hand. Seeing none, he led Cara to the only stall.

He would have tended her himself even if there had been a stable hand. She was the only pure white horse in the kingdom. He never let anyone else touch her—only his brushstroke cleaned her coat, only his hand fed her, and he cherished the small nuzzle she would give his shoulder, or her soft sighs of contentment. They were his best reward, and his only real joy.

His life was bleak—had been since he was a boy—but he knew no way of improving it. He already lived in the palace, and was the best in his field. He wasn’t sure he had the capacity for love, and if he did, he wasn’t sure if it would improve his life. The kingdom was a gloomy place, but he’d heard of none better.

He’d only seen better in his dreams—dreams he could barely remember.

The hay in the stalls was fresh. There was good food, several buckets of rainwater, and surprisingly, a handful of apples. He gave Cara one—a thank-you for carrying him so far—and then he stroked her velvet nose.

“If the stable hand shows up and gives you trouble,” he said, “call for me. You know I’ll hear you.”

She whickered and nudged him, as if urging him to go inside the inn, and take care of himself.

He hated to leave her, but he really wanted a warm meal and a soft bed. If there was no room, he’d sleep in the hay. Cara wouldn’t like it; she wanted privacy at night. But he would rest easier, knowing she was all right.

She nudged him a second time, and he smiled. “All right, I’ll go. Sleep well.”

But she wasn’t looking at him any longer. Her head was bowed, and she was drinking from one of the buckets he’d set near her. When he walked back into the rain, it seemed as if she had forgotten all about him.

***

The inn had one room left, so small that to call it a closet would be to give it dignity. He’d left it almost immediately and headed into the tavern. Locals clustered around the wooden tables, drinking the watered-down ale.

He picked a table in the back corner, close enough to the fire to get warm, but far enough away that no one would notice him. One of his best skills was his ability to disappear into his surroundings, to make those around him comfortable by his quiet.

“We have mutton tonight,” the serving wench said. She had noticed him quicker than he liked. He looked up at her with surprise. He hadn’t even heard her approach.

She was young and thin, barely big enough to carry trays.

“Mutton is fine,” he said.

She nodded, and went away. He leaned back in his chair, legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed. His dark pants, tucked into his scuffed boots, were wet and mud-covered. Only his shirt remained dry, except on the shoulders, where his long black hair dripped.

The tavern was clearly where the innkeeper made his money. Only a handful of the locals were eating, and once his food came he knew why. The mutton was old and gray, leaving a pool of grease in the broth, and the bread had mold on the corners.

Because he hadn’t eaten in two days, he picked off the mold and choked down the bread, but the mutton wasn’t worth his time. He sent it back with a request for cheese and some more bread.

It took the serving wench only a few moments to bring him a new plate. The food on this one looked appetizing. The bread was still warm. The cheese was a perfect white, soft to the touch. Obviously, the innkeeper here had two kinds of food: the cheap horrible stuff for travelers, and the good food for regulars. By complaining, Reynaldo had put himself in a new category.

He thanked the girl and sighed as she walked away. He wished she were plump and world-wise. He would have loved someone warm in his bed tonight. The road had given him a chill. He hadn’t expected to have been traveling for so long.

Prince Tadeo had his heart set on a Songbird for the coronation. He had sent Reynaldo—and no one else—after it. Reynaldo was the best magic hunter in the Kingdom, and this trip was meant as an honor—or perhaps a chance at humiliation.

He knew that the other magic hunters had snuck away surreptitiously, hoping to beat him at the profession he had invented. But they would not. In their entire careers, they only found the easy, obvious creatures. It took Reynaldo’s patience, his determination, and his stillness to bring the truly elusive creatures out of hiding.

That, and his ability to find the remote places where the creatures lived in the first place. He had been the only one of Tadeo’s hunters to capture creatures like unicorns and sea witches. His triumphs gave him a room in the palace, a favored position at Tadeo’s table, and a bit of gold, but not enough to last him through the long dry spells between Tadeo’s whims.

Songbirds were proving the most elusive of the magics that Reynaldo had ever sought. Reynaldo had hoped that Tadeo wouldn’t learn of them, but he did a year ago when a storyteller visited court. The storyteller told an ancient tale about the Songbirds and the days when their magic filled the kingdom. Then they had served the king and, more than once, saved his crown.

Things had changed in the centuries since. For reasons the storyteller did not explain, the Songbirds rebelled. Most were slaughtered, and the remainder—it was said—went into hiding. No one had seen a Songbird in nearly a thousand years.

Reynaldo had tried to tell Tadeo that, but of course the Prince didn’t listen. Tadeo had been a magic collector since childhood, and to get a magical creature thought extinct only increased the lure. Tadeo thought it perfect for his coronation, half a year away. He wanted to reveal the greatest magic of all on that day.

Reynaldo sighed and ate the thick warm bread. It had a freshness that was foreign to his tongue. Not even the bread at the palace was this good. His second mug of ale was not diluted this time, and the cheese was the best he had ever tasted.

He was nearly done eating when the serving wench climbed on a stool in front of the fireplace. Conversation ceased, and Reynaldo pushed back his chair. The girl seemed too young to be the entertainment, but she wrapped her hands around her knee as if she were accustomed to sitting in front of a crowd. She surveyed everyone before her gaze met his. She had very old eyes.

She leaned her head back, and began to sing without accompaniment. The hush in the room grew. Her voice had a richness and depth that he had never heard in a human voice before. It had overtones, undertones, and harmonics all its own.

Her first song had no words, and neither did her second. By the third, he no longer listened for words, only for tonalities and phrasing. The sound of her voice sent shivers through him. The place seemed brighter, the fire warmer, and the girl prettier.

He found himself wondering if he’d had too much to drink, and knowing he hadn’t. He was listening to a Songbird.

He had completed his quest.

***

Reynaldo knew better than to capture her in public. He had some research to do. He needed to find out if the girl’s family were all Songbirds and if the rest of the village knew it. The girl—young as she was—might not be the best choice for Tadeo’s collection. An older Songbird might serve better and not be as hard to hold.

Magic, Reynaldo knew, was always hard to hold, especially for those who had none. He had captured magic countless times using only his intelligence and his strength. Underestimating magic was always the worst thing a hunter could do.

Reynaldo listened until the girl finished her miraculous concert. The local crowd applauded and then went back to their ale as if the girl had done nothing unusual. He allowed himself to be shocked and pleased, made a point of complimenting her on the beauty of her voice, and got a blush in return as well as a free mug of ale. But he asked no questions, sought no answers, just paid his tab with one of his last coins and took the stairs to his tiny room.

And there he collapsed on the bed, determined to have a plan by morning.

***

Reynaldo dreamed of colors so bright that they hurt his eyes, scents so pure that they cleared his head, and fabrics so soft that they soothed his skin. He had had dreams like this before. He believed they were moments when he actually touched magic, when he was allowed to enter a world where life was more vivid, each sensation more profound than the one before. He knew if he stayed here long, he would never want to leave. But he also knew that he could not stay.

The colors faded first, then the scents, and finally the softness. He was cold and damp, and the bed smelled of swamp water. He stirred, realized that his face was wet, and opened his eyes.

He was lying face-down in a rut on a muddy road. It was raining so hard that the rut was filling with water. If he’d dreamed much longer, he would have drowned.

Reynaldo sat up and wiped the mud from his face. He was wearing his cloak and boots, even though he had taken them off for bed. The cloak had been stolen from a water elf, and kept his torso dry. But his pants and boots were wet as they had been the night before.

He was in a clearing, and the road continued north into a forest of trees. The same forest he had seen the night before at the edge of the village.

But the village itself was gone. There were no hovels, no small houses, no inn. And no stable.

Cara. He felt his breath catch. He scanned the area, looking for her, hoping she was grazing beneath a tree. He should have seen her white coat even if she were miles away, but he saw nothing except the dark trees, mud, and the greenish gray grass.

She was gone. They had taken her, his prize possession, his heart, and his companion.

It was almost as an afterthought that he patted his cloak, feeling for his purse—humble as it was—and couldn’t find that either.

The great magic hunter had been robbed by his quarry. They had known from the beginning who he was and what he wanted, and they had toyed with him all night. Then they had left him here, alone, to die.

Although that wasn’t accurate. He had clearly been at their mercy. They could have killed him at any point. They let him live as a warning, perhaps to Tadeo, or perhaps to himself.

But they had taken Cara, and no one did that. He had to find her. He couldn’t imagine being without her.

Rain splattered around him. The puddle grew deeper, the mud thicker. He got up and shook his hair free of his cloak, and studied the area, looking for signs of magic.

The clearing was an unnatural one, with paths that branched off the road and then stopped. Large patches of dead grass, and even larger patches of mud covered the ground. He saw bits of hay and horse manure where the stable had recently stood.

The village had been here, just as the inn had been here, just as the stable had been here. But it was all gone now.

The wind came up, cold and biting, pushing Reynaldo back toward the palace. He stood his ground.

He had eaten fairy food and had awakened hungry. He was not hungry now. He had slept the sleep of the enchanted and awakened exhausted. He was not exhausted now.

Obviously his meal and dreams had been as real as they had always been. During his sleep, the Songbirds had taken their village and left him behind.

If Reynaldo went back to the palace for help, he would have to admit his failure. His failure would please Tadeo almost as much as success. Tadeo had been giving Reynaldo tougher and tougher assignments, hoping for this day when his great magic hunter would falter.

But Tadeo did not realize that success was all Reynaldo had. No family, no real friends, no wealth, and no home of his own. Since Reynaldo had been forced into this cursed life by his even more accursed talent, he had lost everything except himself.

Now he faced losing even that.

He would not ride back to Tadeo in shame. He would retrieve his horse, at the very least. At the very best, he would clip the wings of a Songbird and carry it home to its own large, beautiful, gilded cage.

***

Six days of tracking on foot. It rained the entire time—although the rain varied from a downpour to drippy mist. The forest seemed empty of life except for Reynaldo, downed branches, and fallen leaves. He managed to scrounge berries, roots, and bark. That and rainwater kept him sated. But he never had a fire, and his feet were never dry.

The rain, he knew, was not natural. Nor was the stillness of the forest. He had to strain to hear his own feet moving through the mud.

And as he walked, he reviewed what the stories had told him about Songbirds.

Songbirds looked human but lacked all human kindness, all human warmth. Their magic lived in their songs. As long as a Songbird sang the same piece—without starting over—it could create a world with that music. Or it could persuade, cajole, or change a long-held opinion. Some even said that a Songbird’s song could make a heartless man fall in love.

On the seventh day Reynaldo found the village beside a raging river. The village looked the same as before. The houses were in the same order: the road went through the center with paths coming off the sides. The inn was at the north end, and the stable was beside it.

He knew that he found the place because they wanted him to. If they could move the village, they could have kept it hidden from him forever. They finally wanted to see him—for reasons he was sure he would soon discover.

Reynaldo went directly to the stable and pulled open the wooden doors. Lamps hung from pegs on the wall, shedding a soft light on the straw-covered floor. Cara was in the last stall. She whickered when she saw Reynaldo, and his heart leapt. He had missed her; part of him had thought he would never see her again.

He stepped inside. For the first time in a week, water did not hit him in the face. He was cold and numb, unable to absorb the heat.

He started toward Cara when a melodious voice said, “Stop.”

Reynaldo sighed. He had known that it wouldn’t be this easy.

“Give me my horse and my money,” he said, “and I will leave you in peace.”

“Of course you will.” The voice mocked him. “Until you remember your promise to your prince to clip our wings.”

The phrase was not metaphorical. Songbirds had wings, so the stories said, invisible wings that, if clipped properly, would forever trap them in the hand that maimed them.

“You seem to know a lot about me.” Reynaldo was still watching Cara. The horse was not nervous around the Songbird, and magical creatures usually made Cara skittish.

“Dreams reveal much about the dreamer.”

So they had peered into his sleep. The Songbirds had a greater magic than he had originally thought.

“But dreams do not reveal all,” Reynaldo said. “I did not promise Tadeo that I would clip your wings. I promised him a Songbird for his coronation.”

“For his collection.”

Slowly Reynaldo turned, hands out, showing that he meant no harm. “Tadeo always wants magic for his collection. What he does with the magic I bring back is his choice. I was instructed to bring back a Songbird for the coronation, nothing else.”

He could not see the Songbird, but there were shadows near the door that hadn’t been there before.

“You tell pretty lies,” the Songbird said. “Is that how you capture your prey?”

“No.”

“Pity. It would seem the logical thing.” The Songbird stepped out of the shadows. It was the girl, the one who had waited on him, who had sang to him. Only she was not a girl. That had been an illusion. She was a small woman whose hair, skin, and eyes were brown. She wore a brown cape over brown clothing. The only spots of color on her were her red lips and rosy cheeks.

She held herself like a human woman would. He had thought Songbirds would move differently to protect their invisible wings.

“My horse,” he said softly, “and my money. Then I will leave.”

She smiled. “You’re exhausted and wet. You haven’t eaten properly in a week. We can give you food and shelter.”

“Like you did the last time?” he said. “I nearly drowned.”

“The food was real enough, and the bed, too. You spent half the night in it.”

“You let me know what you were.”

“It took you long enough to figure that out.”

“I knew the moment you sat on that stool.”

“And you did nothing? That’s hard to believe.” She crossed her arms. Her cloak bunched slightly, unnaturally, in the back.

“You watched me that first time, peered into my dreams when I slept in the forest, and then let me find you.” He glanced at Cara. She seemed to be watching with great interest.

The Songbird did not answer his question, but he saw the truth of it in her eyes. That was the only way they would have known his identity. He hunted infrequently, and never the same creatures twice.

“That still doesn’t explain,” he said into her silence, “why you’re treating me this way. You could have killed me that night. Or better, you could have ignored me. There was no reason to let me see your village. But you want something. What is it?”

“We want to give you your life back,” she said.

He felt his shoulders stiffen. “My life has never left me. Or are you telling me that I’m dead?”

“You’re not dead.” Her voice was soft. “You just haven’t lived for years.”

“Perhaps by your definition.” The tension was working its way down his back. “I don’t sing pretty songs and laugh as much as some think I should. But I live.”

“In service to a boy who believes that beauty should be caged.”

Reynaldo took a deep breath. Some of the tension slipped away. “So that’s it. You want me to renounce my work.”

“More than that,” she said. “We want you to free the creatures that Tadeo holds.”

“We?” he said. “Do you speak for yourself or your people?”

“The Songbirds listen to me.”

“And they want me to destroy Prince Tadeo’s collection.”

“Yes.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because of your dreams.” She took a step toward him. Her voice was mesmerizing, warm, and rich. “I can let you live in the world of your dreams.”

He recognized charm when he heard it. Of course Songbirds could entice. Magic lived in their voices.

“Live in the world of my dreams.” He made it sound like he was tempted and—if he told himself the truth—he was. “The lush beautiful magical world that I see whenever I’m near something unusual?”

She nodded.

“You want me to risk everything, including my life, for a place where the food tastes better and the colors are brighter? A world I can barely remember when I’m awake? A world I’m not even sure exists?”

Those eyes held him. “Are you sure this one exists?”

He laughed. “I am not a philosopher. Questions like that are better contemplated by smarter men than I.”

“There are few men smarter than you are,” she said. “You simply have chosen a poor way to use your intelligence.”

He crossed his arms. “The creatures I’ve given to Prince Tadeo live in complete luxury.”

An emotion flashed across her face too quickly for him to read it—Disgust? Amusement?—he wasn’t sure.

“You must decide what you want.” The vibrancy had left her voice.

“What if I don’t do what you want?”

“Then you’ll wander the forest until you decide to return empty-handed. You will lose your status as the greatest magic hunter, but you will have your life. Or you could choose to make a new life away from the kingdom. You do not have to do what we want.”

The tension had spread through him. “If I do what you ask, Prince Tadeo will have me killed.”

“You chose to come after us.”

“There are others who are after you.”

Her eyes glittered. “But there is only one who can free Tadeo’s prisoners.”

He was silent for a moment, weighing her words. Then he said, “What if I don’t want to live in the land of my dreams? If I do what you ask, what will you give me instead?”

“A miracle,” she said quietly.

He had seen miracles all his life—and had captured them for his prince.

“I’ll do as you ask,” he said.

***

An instant later he was in the rain, on Cara’s back, heading toward the palace. A week of riding, vanished in a single moment.

It felt good to touch her. Part of him thought he had lost her forever. He touched her mane for reassurance, and she grunted, as if he had disturbed her rhythm somehow.

The rain seemed even colder, the wind harsher. The drops stung at his cheeks. Cara’s hooves threw mud on him, and only the horse’s innate grace prevented them from slipping on the washed out roads.

It had rained here too, rained like he had never seen. Tadeo would be displeased. He hated rain—always longing for sun or snow.

And now Reynaldo was returning without his prize. He had thought he would have time to come up with a story, but he had nothing. It was the same as having failed.

The palace stood alone at the edge of the Great Wood. The Royal City was several miles to the south. The palace, built a thousand years ago, was purposely isolated; the land itself was seen as a protection against rebels who would attack a king.

But for nearly ten years, there had been no king to attack. Tadeo’s father had died of a wasting disease. Tadeo’s mother, his father’s fifth wife and the only one to bear a child, had become Queen Mother, but the kingdom’s laws prevented her from ruling despite her son’s youth. Since he was eleven, Tadeo had acted as king. On his twenty-first birthday, he would become king officially.

The coronation would be his greatest triumph—or so he hoped.

Reynaldo reached the palace gates where the guards recognized him and opened the way. He headed straight for the stables. Once Cara was groomed and fed and placed in a comfortable stall, Reynaldo tended to his own needs.

His rooms were large and well furnished. The main room had carved wooden cabinets that were centuries old, couches embroidered by ladies in waiting of nearly two dozen different queens.

Reynaldo did not even look into the bedroom or the small dining room. Instead he ordered a bath, then went to the wardrobe to choose the proper clothes for an audience with Tadeo.

With the bath came food, and a summons from Tadeo.

The bath was heaven, the steaming water soothing to his cold limbs. He felt as if he hadn’t been warm in a year; he ate grapes and small cakes, and drank the cool artesian water.

When he was through, he dressed in silk robes over a white shirt, and a pair of velvet riding trousers which he tucked into polished black boots. The outfit was a mixture of court dress and his usual clothing. He was the only member of the court who did not follow Tadeo’s strict dress codes.

Reynaldo hated looking tame.

He took back corridors and a secret passage that led to Tadeo’s private audience room. Although Reynaldo was not keeping his return a secret, he did not want the news of it to spread too quickly either.

He had the beginnings of a plan.

He knocked on the hidden door, and Tadeo himself opened it. The prince was slight, dark-haired, and smooth-skinned. He hadn’t yet matured enough to grow a beard.

“I have not heard of any great triumph,” Tadeo said as he stepped aside, allowing Reynaldo into the room. “Where’s my Songbird?”

“Elusive,” Reynaldo said.

“Elusive or not, you were supposed to find one.” Tadeo crossed the hand-woven carpet to the gilt chair that he only used when speaking business. “Have you?”

“I have been following myth, legend, and rumor for weeks.” Reynaldo took a simple wooden chair and sat across from Tadeo. “I found a village at the very edge of the kingdom which led me to believe that some of what I heard is true, and some is not. What is clear is that Songbirds are more powerful than the stories let on. That the kingdom held them in thrall once seems almost miraculous to me.”

Tadeo waved a hand in dismissal. He did not care about the past, only the present. “If you were close, I don’t understand why you came back.”

“To offer you a choice.” The room was too warm—a fire burned high, probably to ward off the damp. The windows were shuttered against the rain, but Reynaldo could hear it, beating against the walls as if it were trying to break in.

Tadeo raised his eyebrows. “A choice? There is no choice, Reynaldo. You are to bring me a Songbird.”

“At any cost?”

“Yes, at any cost.” And then Tadeo frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“The price,” Reynaldo said. “But if you don’t want to hear it….”

“You know that I will not pay you more than we have already agreed.” Tadeo crossed his arms. He was getting angry.

“The cost is yours, not mine.”

“Whatever does that mean?”

“It means,” Reynaldo said, “that magic is powerful, and sometimes not worth the price of capture.”

“Nonsense,” Tadeo said. “We haven’t paid a price before.”

Reynaldo stared at him for a moment. Tadeo was so young that his skin was still soft and lined with baby fat. He had no idea how life exacted a price.

“Well, then,” Reynaldo said, pushing himself out of the chair. “If you are unconcerned, I will go about my business.”

He had almost made it to the door when Tadeo said, “You’ve never approached me about a price before. What has changed this time?”

Reynaldo did not turn around. Instead, he smiled. He had maneuvered Tadeo into the place that he wanted him. “The only way I can catch a Songbird is to open the cages of your collection.”

“My collection!” Tadeo sounded stunned.

Reynaldo slowly faced him. The boy’s cheeks were red. He didn’t like the idea. He would now have to choose between all his toys and a single great prize.

“Are you certain you will be able to capture a Songbird with this method?” Tadeo asked.

“Yes,” Reynaldo said.

Tadeo leaned back in his chair. It was still too large for him. He looked like a child trying to act like an adult. All except his eyes. They were too cold to be a child’s. “Can you recapture my collection?”

“Of course, Sire. They have my marks. They should be easier to find this time.”

“How do I know that you’re not doing this just to create more work for yourself?”

Reynaldo smiled. “Because there is still so much work to do. You only possess a fraction of the magic that exists in this Kingdom. If you want a complete collection, you must hire two others who are as good as I am—and we both know there are none—and then the three of us must capture a magical creature once a month.”

Tadeo sighed. “Quite a risk you’re taking, Reynaldo. I will kill you if you fail.”

“Actually,” Reynaldo said softly, “It’s your risk, Sire. My life is not worth the price of your collection.”

“True.” Tadeo stood. He took a deep breath. He was clearly uneasy about the decision, but he had made it, as Reynaldo wanted him to. That way, if Tadeo was dissatisfied with the Songbird, he had no one to blame but himself. “You have my permission.”

Reynaldo bowed once. “Thank you, Sire,” he said, and let himself out.

***

The collection was housed in its own tower on the palace grounds. Tadeo had had the tower built special after Reynaldo had caught his first creature. The tower was designed so that the nobles could view the collection, perhaps even see a bit of magic, without harm—and without fear that the creatures would escape.

Tadeo had dismissed the guards. The rest of the staff had been ordered not to interfere with Reynaldo.

He was dressed all in black. His boots were silver, his gloves so thick that nothing could touch him. His heart pounded hard. He had caught fifteen creatures, but he had never freed one before. On this day, he would free everything—even the creatures caught by his imitators.

Reynaldo carried a bucket filled with seawater, and went to the fresh water grotto in the basement to see the sea witch, water elf, and mermaid. The grotto was large and deep. The walls and ceiling were made of rock so that they looked like a natural cave. The humid air smelled of dampness and despair.

They hid, as they always did when he came, but he lured them with the salt water’s scent. The sea witch rose first, her magnificent face—once the gray of a stormy ocean, now so pale as to be nearly clear—flashing with anger.

“What more can you do to us?” she asked, and as she did, he splashed her with the salt water. She sputtered, shocked, and then the gray returned to her face.

“This is a trick,” she said.

He shook his head.

She snapped her fingers, rousing her companions, then she cursed Reynaldo and vanished, leaving a small water funnel in her wake. As the water elf rose to the surface, Reynaldo splashed him as well, and then the mermaid. They didn’t vanish like the sea witch. The water elf flew away on a rain cloud, and the mermaid climbed to the side of the grotto. She stood for a moment, naked, legs in place of her tail, and then she approached him.

“May you live as I have these past eight years,” she said in her throaty voice. Then she slapped him, took his cloak, wrapped it around herself, and walked out of the room.

Reynaldo stared at the fresh water grotto for a moment, stunned at how easy it was to free its prisoners. It had taken him weeks to catch the mermaid, months to capture the water elf, and nearly a year to find the sea witch, let alone outsmart her. All that work, gone, in the space of a few moments.

He poured the remaining seawater out of the bucket. He cleaned the bucket thoroughly and filled it with fresh water. Then he went to the saltwater pools to free the nymphs and water sprites.

By mid-morning, half his prizes were gone. He felt their losses as if the collection belonged to him, not Tadeo. For the first time, Reynaldo wondered at the wisdom of his plan.

But he did not stop. He led the troll to the grotto’s bridge, gave gold to the dragon, and pocketed the scissors from the life-weaver’s room. He placed the mushroom elf on loamy ground, and gave the griffin his tail. He went through every room, reversing each capture spell until he found himself alone in the tower.

The room was round and made of stone. There was no furniture here, no windows, nothing except a pair of gold-flecked wings in a case made of glass.

He stared at them for the longest time, remembering that summer afternoon in the forest, not far from here. He had been a young man then, so young he had not known a woman and had never dreamed of love. He sat in the glade and waited for days, until the call of his soul was answered.

This was what he had feared most—this room, this reversal. And he hadn’t even admitted it to himself.

He opened the case and removed the wings. They were as soft as he remembered, and they smelled faintly of lavender, just as they had all those years ago. He brought them to his face, leaned his cheek into them, remembering that moment, that fleeting moment, when he thought the world could belong to him.

But of course it didn’t. Magic was like a sparkle, something that could be ruined by prolonged close contact. And yet, being close was all he had ever wanted.

He sighed, set the bucket down, and tucked the wings under his arm. He went down the circular staircase to the main floor of the empty tower, and let himself out.

The raindrops seemed fatter than before, colder, almost ice. The sky was black. Sometimes, when it rained like this, it felt as if the sun would never shine again.

He crossed the muddy grounds to the stable. The grooms were gone, as he had ordered.

Cara watched him approach. She was strangely motionless. He would have thought that she would have been pacing the stall in anticipation. But her blue eyes were wide, her white coat trembling, her nose quivering. Those were the only things that revealed her emotions. No one else would have seen it, but no one else knew what Reynaldo held in his hands.

There was nothing he could say—and neither could Cara. She had lost the art of speech long ago. It had been the second thing to go after he took her wings. First her horn, then her speech, and finally the unusual intelligence in those blue eyes.

He opened the stall door and placed the wings on her back, careful to put them on the proper sides. For a moment, he thought it had been too long, that they wouldn’t take. Then they slipped into her skin as if they had never left her.

Her eyes grew darker, her coat gained a sprinkling of gold, and with a twist of light, her horn returned. The air sparkled around her, as it had when she had first come to him in the glade all those years ago.

He pulled the stall door back, and stood aside. She turned her head toward him. She was beautiful again—her eyes so alive he wondered how he had ever been satisfied with what he had made her.

She brushed his face with the tip of her horn. It was soft and warm, and he could feel the magic sloughing off it. The magic burned him, like sparks from a campfire.

“In spite of myself, I am fond of you,” she said, her voice as deep and rich as the Songbird’s.

He stepped back so that she could not touch him. “You’ve been with me all this time. You know what I’ve become.”

“And I remember what you were.” She tossed her mane. More magic fell around him, burning when it touched his skin. Then she walked out of the stall and disappeared in the rain.

She did not look back, and he could not stop staring after her. It had been an impulse, the first time, a hunch. Somehow he had known that if he took her wings, she would be his forever. She had come to him, and he wanted to tell his friends about it. But he knew if he returned to his friends without her, they wouldn’t have believed him. They would have laughed. He brought her with him to prove to them that he had touched magic.

Then Tadeo saw her and demanded one of his own. But Reynaldo had lied. He had said that he was building a reputation, and would not waste his time capturing the same type of creature twice.

For a decade, he had lived up to that vow.

Now Cara was gone, walking away as if they had not spent the last ten years together. He had thought her his only remaining friend.

He had been wrong.

“I did not think you would live up to the bargain.” The Songbird was in the stall with him. She seemed brighter too—shots of gold in her brown hair, a light behind her dark eyes.

Reynaldo slipped his hand in his pocket, his fingers trembling.

“I didn’t live up to it,” he said, grabbing her and pulling her close. He wrapped one arm around her tiny little neck and held her tightly.

He could feel her heart beating rapidly, and knew he felt her fright. His fingers closed on the handle of the scissors as he took them out of his pocket and held them over her right shoulder—the very spot where her coat had bunched a few nights before.

“Prince Tadeo let me use his collection to catch you.” Reynaldo could hear her breath rasping, feel the fragility of her small bones against his.

“If you clip my wings,” she said, “you destroy more than you can imagine.”

He could feel the wings now, fluttering against him. Their feathers were sharp, scratching him.

“It’s a risk I will take,” he said, opening the scissors.

“You’ll start the war all over again. This time, your people will know they lost.”

His hand was still trembling. It took all of his strength to hold her and keep the scissors open. “What do you mean?”

“You have always been wrong.” Her voice wobbled. “You have a magic. It’s a bit of vision, nothing more. You can see edges, corners, things that are usually hidden from your people. That was how you hunted. That was how you knew how to cripple Cara.”

He flinched at the phrase. It wasn’t accurate. Cara had her wings again. She wasn’t permanently damaged.

Before he spoke, he made sure his voice held no emotion. “So?”

“So you dream,” she said, “and see what is.”

His hand slipped and he nicked her. She cried out. A spot of blood welled in the air an inch above her right shoulder. “What does that matter?”

“You’re not the first. Your people’s powers have been growing.”

“Be clearer,” he said softly, “or I will cut your wing off.”

“Your people’s new powers threaten us.”

He tightened his grip on her. Her bones felt more fragile than any bones he had ever touched. “We have always threatened you. The fact that we grow stronger should make no difference.”

She laughed. The sound was bitter. “Think. How could we, with all our magic, lose a battle against humans?”

“The rebellion?” he asked. “The Songbirds against the king? Are you saying you won?”

“We create worlds with our song. As long as we never repeat a phrase, the world holds. This one has held for a thousand years.”

He gripped the scissors tighter. “The rain isn’t natural. There hasn’t been enough sun.”

“You noticed that, but almost no one else did. They just complained.” She stirred in his arms. “And there is no rain now.”

He strengthened his hold on her, fearing it was a trick. Then he peered beyond her through the open stable door. Weak sunlight illuminated the mud and the standing water. Cara’s hoofprints, leading away from the stable, glittered like gold.

“What’s changed?” he asked.

“The magic you captured is now free.”

“Why would that make a difference?”

“You held it in thrall, diminishing it. We had less to draw on.”

“So I was defeating you all by myself.” He brought the scissors down again. “I could have destroyed you.”

“Only the illusion,” she whispered.

“And once the illusion disappeared, we would have had a chance to fight you again.”

She was silent.

“The battle must have been close,” he said. “You won by a small margin, or you would not imprison us like this. We barely remembered your existence. You would have kept us ignorant forever if you could.”

A shiver ran through her.

“What happens now?” he asked. “What if I clip your wings?”

She opened her mouth and sang a song so clear and pure that the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Around him, the stable melted away. He was standing in the middle of a clearing, very much like the one in which he had found Cara.

The air was fresh and smelled of spring, the grass was greener than any he had ever seen, the sunlight so brilliant that it hurt his eyes. He hadn’t realized how diminished his world had been.

There were creatures all around him—in the sky, on the ferns by his feet, on the flowers blooming beneath the trees. In front of him, three Songbirds—a man and two women—stood with their arms around each other. They sang in perfect harmony. Another Songbird approached, another man. For a moment, his song blended with theirs, and then one of the women bowed her head, excusing herself, and walked away. The new man took her place.

“This is a trick,” Reynaldo whispered.

“I wish it were,” his Songbird said. “But now that you see, I can’t blind you again.”

“If I let you go, you’ll let me live here.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And what of my people? They’ll stay in the darkness and rain, prisoners who have no idea that they’re imprisoned.”

“They aren’t unhappy,” she said.

“Are you so sure?” he asked. “If I dream of this place, what’s to say others don’t as well?”

He felt her stiffen beneath him. So others did dream. He wasn’t the only threat.

“Your people started the war,” the Songbird said softly. “You tried to destroy us. We barely survived.”

“That was a thousand years ago.” He was growing cold. “None of the people who harmed you live any longer.”

“But you collect us as if we were trophies,” she said. “We’re not.”

“No,” he said. “We are.”

She shuddered once and then went very still. Her heartbeat was just as rapid, just as frightened. It was the only thing that gave her away.

“I have the power to change everything, don’t I?” he asked. “To blend our worlds the way they were before.”

“You’re not ready to live with us again,” she said.

“I think we are. Your world is leaching into ours. I have powers I should not have, and your world bleeds into my dreams. Does ours bleed into yours?”

She was leaning against him as if she were having trouble standing on her own. “If you stay here and do not bring the others, you will have more magic than you ever dreamed of, riches beyond your power to imagine, beautiful women—anything. Anything at all.”

His hand was no longer trembling. “And if I refuse?”

“You will stand in both worlds, and live in neither.”

“I will control both worlds,” he said, “any time I threaten your music. It’s a stalemate. One I could end with two snips of these shears.”

“Please, don’t. The war—”

“Won’t happen. My people will be too confused, too awed by this new world. They’ve never seen real beauty. They won’t know what it is. And because of that, your people will gain power. They won’t have to sing all the time, won’t have to expend the magic to create an illusion. We—all of us—might move forward.”

“We might slaughter each other again.”

Her blood, warm and sticky, was flowing onto the arm he used to hold her.

“End your illusion,” he said, “and keep your wings.”

“It’ll be chaos.”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“You can’t stand up to us,” she said.

“I can.”

The other Songbirds were watching as if they knew that everything rested on this moment. She closed her eyes. He could feel her wings pressing against his chest.

“Stop singing,” she whispered.

Faces turned toward her, faces he hadn’t seen before. Grass elves looked up from their perches on long blades, flower sprites from their petals, acorn fairies from their leaves.

“What?” a thousand voices whispered, as faint as the wind in trees.

She sighed, then said again, “Stop singing.”

The Songbirds stared at her as if she had lost her mind. She was pressing against Reynaldo harder now, and he realized that she was growing weaker.

“Stop singing,” he said, “or I’ll let her die. What does it take? The loss of one wing? Or both? And if you lose her magic, you lose all, don’t you? She’s more powerful than all the creatures I captured combined.”

The male Songbird closed his mouth. The harmony faded, and then the female Songbird stopped, then the other male. Gradually the music stopped.

Reynaldo’s ears rang. He hadn’t heard silence before—not once in his entire life.

Then the silence ended. He heard screams and shouts, and a bellow that he recognized. Tadeo stood a few yards away, and screamed Reynaldo’s name.

Reynaldo did not answer. He didn’t have to. In this place, there was no kingdom, and Tadeo was simply a young, spoiled boy.

The Songbird let out a small sigh. Her heartbeat wasn’t as rapid. Reynaldo scooped her in his arms and carried her to the other Songbirds.

He handed her to them, and one of them carried her away through the tall grass. Reynaldo looked toward the trees and saw Cara staring at him, her eyes filled with tears. Her beauty took his breath away. He had tried to capture that beauty and failed. Holding her had nearly destroyed her.

Just as the world he’d been living in had nearly destroyed him.

He reached for her, but she vanished into the trees. He could pursue her, but to what end? She deserved a life, a free life, just like he did.

Tadeo had reached his side. His face was red with the strain of walking, his skin sheened with sweat.

“Reynaldo,” he said, “what is the meaning of this?”

“We’ve lost our home, Tadeo. We’re in the world we’ve always dreamed of.”

“I never dreamed of this,” Tadeo said.

But Reynaldo had. A world so bright and vivid that it threatened to overwhelm him. He had been right. His people would be weaker here while they learned to accept the changes. But they would learn—if the right person taught them.

“What do we do now?” Tadeo asked.

Reynaldo gazed at him for a moment—the boy who finally knew how it felt to lose everything. Tadeo couldn’t lead them here. He lacked the understanding. He lacked the vision.

He lacked the magic.

Reynaldo no longer had to answer him. The world had changed, in more ways than one.

___________________________________________

“Songbirds“ is available for one week on this site. The ebook is available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Songbirds

Copyright © 2021 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in Dragon Magazine, September, 2000
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2021 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Canva

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

That’s a lot of reading.

I don’t know about you folks, but I’m finding myself in great need of escapism right now. Fiction is the best way to block out the problems of 2025. What could be better than concentrating on some made-up adventures right now?

The Series Collide Kickstarter features 100 short stories in 36 series. Fifty stories are by me and fifty are by Dean. Think of the five books in the Kickstarter as a massive sampler. You can sample each series and if you like what you’ve read, you’ll have a lot more series reading ahead of you.

As an illustration, read this week’s Free Fiction story. It’s from my Retrieval Artist series. If you like it, there are 15 novels to grab your attention.

So head on over to the Kickstarter. In addition to the five Series Collide books, you can find other short story collections as well as some writing workshops and the opportunity to submit stories to Pulphouse Magazine (which is usually closed to submissions.)

I’m also late letting you know about the latest Diving novel, The Chase. You knew it was coming, because I told you about the Kickstarter for it, and I told you about the preorders. I just forgot to remind you when the book was published. (Wow. I’m really lax this fall.) Soooo…The Chase is out, in all formats. It features Boss and Coop, and answers a few of your questions. Find it in your favorite format here. (Except audio. I haven’t worked out the audio side of things yet.)

What’s keeping me so busy? The Fey, if you must know. I’m writing four books at once, not because I want to, but because that’s the way my brain is serving them up.

To make matters more complicated, I needed to finish a novella at an editor’s request, so I picked a half-finished Diving novella, thinking it would take no time at all. Really? Really? No time at all??? Why do I delude myself like that? Anyway, that’s underway as well. So I’m writing, writing, writing…and taking an entertainment law class that’s kicking my butt, but giving me great fodder for blogs that I will write for early next year. You can get a small preview of those on my Patreon page.

One of the things I got behind on was letting you know about Storybundles. The Visions of the Future Storybundle has only a few days left. (Sorry!) It also has a lot of great writers, and wonderful books, all with some kind of future vision. If you missed the previous Diving novel, Thieves, you can get the ebook really cheap in this bundle along with nine other great books. Hurry, hurry, hurry! The bundle will disappear forever before Thanksgiving.

Last year at this time…well, you all remember last year at this time. I’m sure that, like me, you try to put the worst of the misery out of your mind. To cope with that weird and sad and heartbreaking holiday season, I wrote a novel just for me. It’s the story of Spade and Paladin at an sf convention that’s a hybrid of conventions now (more diverse) and conventions in the 1990s. I had a blast writing the book. It’s not quite a cozy mystery, since Spade isn’t really an amateur detective, and Paladin certainly isn’t, but the novel’s nowhere near noir either. I think it’s the perfect escapist reading, and early responses agree. There’s no holiday in this one, but lots and lots of snow. I think you’ll like it.

Speaking of the holiday season, I just published a collection of short stories that appeared in the first two Holiday Spectaculars. With the exception of one story, these are mysteries, and a couple are quite dark. I think they’re the perfect antidote to the sweetness of my Kristine Grayson Santa series. See if you agree.

You also have two days to get in at the very start of this year’s Holiday Spectacular. (I have two more stories in this one, and they’re not in the collection.) For those of you who don’t know what the Holiday Spectacular is, it’s essentially an advent calendar filled with short story ebooks. Only this calendar isn’t religious and it doesn’t run through advent.

The Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories begin on Thursday (American Thanksgiving) and run through New Year’s Day. There are stories for most holidays on the calendar, and some that aren’t. (It’s amazing what some writers can dream up.) The stories this year are phenomenal. I think you’ll really love them.

My favorite thing about the Spectacular? It’s like receiving a little present every single day. So order one for yourself…and, if you act quickly, you can order one for your favorite person as well. Let them know that they’ll get their first holiday gift on American Thanksgiving and they’ll continue to get gifts throughout the season. How fun is that?

Finally, in case you’re still feeling a little off heading into this holiday season, I have shared a picture of our newest cat, Angel. She doesn’t quite comprehend the idea behind a Santa hat. But she will (Kris writes with an evil cackle). Oh, she will….

Let’s go by deadline.

First, WMG Publishing is holding a half-off online workshops sale. We did this when COVID started to encourage people to stay in and learn. We hoped it would be a one-shot. It wasn’t. And here we are, in September, with the U.S. leading the world in cases and deaths (!) and France’s numbers going up, and Spain’s numbers going up…and really, the sane thing is for all of us to stay home (much as we hate it) and wear our masks when we’re out and just take care of ourselves until we get a vaccine, whenever that will be. Oh—wash our hands! (and if you weren’t doing that already, then, ick.)

So we’re doing another half-off sale to encourage you writers to stay in, learn about writing and publishing, and write and publish more while you have the time. Here’s the link to a possible curriculum and the code to get your workshops half off: https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/course-curriculum/

Then…if you’re one of the people who backed the Diving Kickstarter, thank you! You should have gotten your survey already. If you haven’t, let me or Dean know or check what email address you gave Kickstarter. (Or look in your spam.

For the first time, we contracted with a service called Crowd Ox to do fulfillment, and one of the features they added is a late-backer option for the Kickstarter. Which means…if you missed the Kickstarter entirely or forgot you were going to back it or were going to look at it later, but later passed you by, you can still get all of the Kickstarter deals and goodies by going to this link. https://app.crowdox.com/projects/403649867/the-return-of-boss

Diving fans! The new novella, “Maelstrom,” has just appeared in Asimov’s. Yes, if you backed the Kickstarter, you will get an ebook copy of this…in 2021 (after Asimov’s no longer has an exclusive). But I urge you to get Asimov’s anyway, because there are so many good stories in this issue. I’m quite proud to be included with these amazing writers.

Some of you aren’t Kickstarter people and are Diving fans, and I urge you to get your copy of Asimov’s as well. In fact, you should subscribe. It’s a wonderful magazine. Here’s the link to the current issue: https://www.asimovs.com/current-issue/table-of-contents/

And…I have three more stories that just got released into the wild. You’ll find the first in Fiction River: Stolen edited by Leah Cutter. I wrote a delightfully short mystery whose twisty-ness pleased me. I hope you like it as well. Get your copy here: https://books2read.com/u/3nWLEB

I missed an earlier Fiction River publication. Doorways to Enchantment is a marvelous fantasy edition edited by Dayle A. Dermatis. She managed to find all kinds of portal fantasies, including one of mine. Find out more here: https://books2read.com/u/4NLWMo.

Finally, I have a…well…strange story in Face The Strange edited by Ron and Brigid Collins. Lots of wonderful writers in both Face The Strange and in Stolen. I think you’ll like what you see. Here’s a link to get your copy of Face The Strange: https://books2read.com/u/4AK61q

Every now and then, indie writers erupt into discussions of price.  Writers remain convinced—no matter how much logic you show them—that readers won’t buy a book written by a new writer unless that book is cheap.

If that statement were true, then traditional publishing would not exist. Traditional publishing—as long as it has been around—has sold books by new writers at the same price as books by established writers. There is no tiered pricing for new to old.

Honestly, tiered pricing has nothing to do with the arts. Tiered pricing is day-job thinking, believing that the writer’s experience matters more than the piece of art itself.

People who work day jobs expect to start at a lower wage than people who’ve been in the job for a while.

If you think about things from a writer’s point of view, day-job thinking kinda makes sense. You’d think that established writers would get paid more than writers who are brand new.

But even in the most corporate part of publishing, traditional publishing, tiered pricing does not exist. It doesn’t even exist when it comes to advances paid by traditional publishers. If a traditional publisher believes that Brand New Writer’s Very First Novel will be a worldwide bestseller, then that traditional publisher will pay an advance to Brand New Writer in the six- or seven-figures, while Established Writer with a long track record who has just released her fiftieth novel might get an advance in the five-figures. If she’s lucky.

Both books, by the way, will have the same suggested retail price on their covers.

Publishing isn’t about the artist. It’s about the art, the product, the item.

And for readers, it’s about the story. Does the reader want that story? Does the reader like reading that genre? Does the reader think that story will entertain them?

Readers do shop by price, but not in the way that writers think readers should. We’ve had that discussion. It’s in the pricing posts.

If readers don’t buy new writers by price, how do new writers get discovered?

That’s the point of all these blogs. And honestly, the best way for a new writer to get discovered is in the company of established writers.

That’s why bundles work (see last week’s post). That’s why networked blogs and other group activities also aid discoverability.

But the best way to be discovered is to become familiar to a reader.

How can a new writer do that without lowering the price of her precious novel?

There are a variety of ways to do that. And many of them involve sampling.

Most indie writers think of sampling as that opening of the novel that e-tailers let you put up for your book. The first ten or twenty percent absolutely needs to be available to the reader, so don’t clutter up the opening of the ebook version of your novel with pull quotes or a table of contents. (In the ebook, put the table of contents in the back.) Let the opening of the book speak for itself.

But there’s a lot more to sampling than simply having the opening of your book available to the readers.

The best way to let readers sample your work is through more of the work—not free copies given away on e-bookstore sites—but as part of a larger whole.

The best way to sample? Write short stories.

I write a lot of short stories. I love them, which is one reason I write them. I also write short stories as a means to world-build my novels. I would much rather work out a story question while figuring out how part of my world works, than write some dry nonfiction piece for the book’s bible which no one else will ever see.

Even if I’m not writing science fiction or fantasy, I write stories to world-build. I use short stories as practice. Writers so rarely think they need to practice, but we all do. Sometimes I practice a historic milieu. Sometimes I practice a character. Sometimes I practice a technique.

If the short story doesn’t work, I’m out a few hours (or a week) of my time. If the novel doesn’t work, then I’m out several months.

The best thing about short stories, though, is their versatility.

Let me give you an example.

My short story, “Play like a Girl,” is free on this website until Monday. I wrote the story by invitation for an anthology of short stories based on the songs of Janis Ian. The anthology, Stars, has just been reprinted through Lucky Bat Books. It also has a brand new audio edition through Audible. WMG Publishing has just published a standalone version of the story with a great cover.

So, as of today, readers have four ways to find that short story. Readers who come to my weekly free fiction post will find “Play like a Girl” and maybe like it well enough to buy some of the other slipstream stories or women’s fiction that I write. Maybe they’ll even pick up my novel, Bleed Through, which is also marketed as women’s fiction (and which also has a new audio edition).

Readers who like women’s fiction might discover the standalone short story through a search of new women’s fiction on the e-tailing sites. Or readers might pick up the e-book because of the spectacular cover that Allyson Longueira at WMG designed.

But the best way for readers to discover me and my work through that short story is in the anthology Stars. Thirty different writers have stories in that anthology. Fans of each of those writers might pick up the anthology. Fans who like more than one of the writers definitely will pick up the anthology.

If those fans are completest readers, like I am, they’ll read the other stories in the volume. If they like “Play like a Girl,” they’ll flip to the bio I’ve put in which accompanies the story, and find my other work. Or they’ll come to this website to see what else I’m doing. Or they’ll do a search of my work on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo or whatever online retailer they usually use.

They might not buy a full novel. They might buy a short story. They might sample some books before trying one. They might see the storybundle on the sidebar, and order it, getting a bunch of books for less than the price of one.

They might take one of my novels out of the library.

Or they might not remember my name at all—until they encounter another of my short stories somewhere, and then remember that they had liked “Play like a Girl.”

The best part of discoverability via short stories, in my opinion, is that the work introduces the reader to other work by the author.

Plus the short story is advertising. Think about it. It costs a minimum of $600 for a half page (horizontal) to advertise one time in one of the Dell short fiction magazines. It costs $1000 for a full-page ad.

In the current issue of Analog, I have a short story that runs seven pages. To run seven pages of full-page advertising would cost me $7000. Instead, I got paid for the short story—and readers get a chance to sample my work.

That’s quite a financial swing in my favor.

And the story’s not done doing its job. After a few months go by, my contract with Analog allows me to reprint the story any way that I want to. Including in an ebook, which will allow more readers to find my work.

Analog has this lovely fact on their website:

According to our reader survey, more than 80% purchase books by the authors they have been introduced to in our magazines. And about 33% read more than 15 science fiction novels per year!

I write science fiction, so having an sf story in Analog puts my name in front of their 27,000 readers.

When I edited The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, we did a similar survey and got similar results. Unlike book publishers, magazines do survey their readers because a loss of circulation means that magazines can’t charge as much for advertising. So magazines need to know what their readers want and how to make sure the magazine caters to those wants.

I have no idea how many people have bought/will buy the Stars anthology. But even if it’s only 10,000 readers, those 10,000 readers might not have seen my work otherwise.

I publish stories in a wide variety of venues, from the major sf magazines to small literary magazines like Rosebud, which has a small but loyal readership of 2500 to 5000, depending on the issue.

I can’t measure how many readers cross over from the short stories to the novels, mostly because I haven’t tried, but I do know that many, many fans tell me they encountered my short stories long before they bought my books.

I keep the short stories in the mail. I still submit to traditional short story markets all the time. I do so, because despite what new writers believe, writers never become “established.” There are always new readers who have never heard of you. As a writer, you will never ever be able to rest on your laurels. New readers enter the book buying pool every day—and the vast majority of those readers have not heard of you.  They haven’t heard of Nora Roberts either.

They’re new.

It’s up to you to find ways to allow those readers to discover you.

I can see the comments now: so many of you are going to tell me that you submitted five or fifteen or 100 stories to the various magazines and got some rejections. [Shrug] I got three form rejections two weeks ago. Writers collect rejection slips.

Keep those stories in the mail. It takes an average of 6 months to get a response from the literary and small magazines. Plan to keep your stories in the mail for a few years before taking them out of the traditonal publishing markets. I’ve sold stories ten years after I’ve written them—all because I kept them in the mail.

Chalk what you’ve written up to practice, keep sending the stories to a market that might buy them, and write more short fiction. It’s certainly better than spending your hard-earned dollars on display ads that won’t work unless you do them right (and yes, we’ll discuss that stuff for the rest of this month).

What if you never sell to the major magazines? What if they don’t like your voice or your quirkiness or whatever? What if you’ve been around for a long time as a short fiction writer and never gotten traction?

Go back to last week’s blog. Put together an e-anthology of your own. Make certain that you have the rights from your fellow contributors to do so, and make sure that you have a contract and a way to do the accounting if you’re going to charge for it.

Bookview Café does anthologies of its members on a regular basis.  So, on the traditional side, does The Mystery Writers of America.

And if you don’t play nice with others, what then?

One week, or one month, or something regular, put a story free on your website only. The idea is to drive traffic to your site and build readership. The nifty thing about my Free Fiction Monday short stories is that so many readers make a point of coming to the website every Monday.

I have no idea how many of these readers buy my work. Honestly, I don’t care. What these readers do is become a resource for other readers. Almost daily, someone recommends my work on Twitter to someone else. This week, the discussion has been about female science fiction writers, and someone linked to my work. Previous weeks, the discussions have been things like paranormal romances or noir fiction.

I don’t initiate these discussions. I see them only because someone has looped me in. But often, that looping includes a link to that week’s free story.

It takes time to establish an audience for the free fiction—several months of regular posting, in fact. But that audience will become loyal.

I don’t offer fiction for free in online bookstores. Only on my website. And only for one week.

It works.

It probably would work better if I made an announcement every week to the various websites that track free fiction. But I’d rather be writing, so I don’t do all of the things that I “should” when it comes to discoverability.

Short stories aid discoverability. So, logically, it would seem that nonfiction does too.

If you’re a nonfiction writer, then articles and blogs will help.

But think about this from a reader’s point of view. Readers are very smart people. They know that fiction writers and nonfiction writers use different skills. A nonfiction writer venturing into novels? Readers are skeptical.

So if they sample and like your nonfiction, they’ll search for more of your nonfiction, not your fiction.

And readers really don’t care about writing or publishing. They have their own lives and their own careers. They’re trying to escape from those things with a few hours of adventure or romance. They don’t want to read business stuff about an industry that’s not their own.

Are there exceptions that make nonfiction writing/blogging aid the discoverability of your novels?

Very few, and they have to be creative.

If you write historical novels, then articles in various journals on the difference between the way the time period is presented in fiction versus nonfiction might help. Or an article about the cool stuff you discovered on the way to something else.

For example, a mystery writer friend of mine who is researching women in World War II for a novel sent me an e-mail with this tidbit: Bea Arthur (Maude, Golden Girls) served in the United States Marine Corps during that war. Which makes sense, honestly, but it’s also cool.

An article based on found tidbits might lead readers to a writer’s fiction. Or it might give that writer a big nonfiction readership for the tidbits.

You want readers to sample your fiction if you’re writing fiction. Remember that.

A lot of systems enable sampling. Writers really need to stop bitching about libraries and used bookstores. Think of those places as a location for readers to get free samples. (And no, I’m not going to get into how to get into libraries right now. There are ways—and we’ll deal with some of that later in the month too.)

Finally, one other great way to encourage sampling is to get your books into the book club circuit.

I haven’t done it yet, but I plan to with Bleed Through. Several book clubs have already used the title to spur discussion.

How do I plan to help with Bleed Through’s discoverability for book clubs? A book club edition. Traditional publishers do them. They have essays from the author, sample questions, and suggestions for other titles that might be useful in the book club.

I asked my sister, an avid reader and member of at least one book club, to help with resources for book clubs. She gave me a long list of the things her club uses.

I’ve decided not to share those lists. Because the websites and lists make it very clear that the websites are for readers. Writers might be invited to give an interview, but they have no place on those sites. Nor do publishers.

Most book club loops on the internet are private. Many don’t want authors there at all. The book club members want the freedom to discuss the writer’s work without fear of insulting the writer.

Do a book club edition, mark it as a book club edition, with added material, and put that in your keywords. It’ll help.

If you need assistance, then look at various book club editions. Some are marketed that way. Others have a marketing bug that’s specific to a particular company. For example, Harper Perennial uses “P.S.” with a section of the cover marked off to let readers know there are “extras.” (You can see what I mean if you look at the front and back covers of this version Michael Chabon’s Manhood For Amateurs.)

Yes, you’ll have to do another edition. Yes, you’ll have to make sure that’s got a separate title from the standard edition. Yes, it’ll take some work.

Just like writing short stories will take work.

But this is the kind of work that writers are good at. Writers write. And if that writing makes the rest of your oeuvre easier to discover, then great. Do this.

Because what we’re going to move into for next week is going to cost you time and money and lots and lots of thinking and planning.

I’ve gotten through the easy (and cheap) stuff.

Next, I’ll tell you how to play with the Big Boys.

Now you know: I’m not doing this blog to sell more fiction. I’m doing it to pay forward for all the teaching and help I received from my mentors. Plus, I’m learning a lot from you folks. It’s nice to have a discussion as the world of publishing changes underneath our feet.

But this blog does take time from all the fiction projects I’m doing, which is why this blog needs to pay for itself, and why it’s the only part of this website that has a donate button.

So, if you’ve learned something or enjoy the blog, please leave a tip on the way out.

Thanks so much for your time and your visits!

Click here to go to PayPal

“The Business Rusch: Samples” copyright 2014 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Please Read These Assumptions Before Commenting:

I’m going to make some assumptions in the next group of blog posts, and I’ll repeat those assumptions each week until I’m done.

Assumption #1: I’m going to assume you’ve read the previous posts, which you can find here.  

Assumption #2: With only a few exceptions, we will be talking about fiction here. There are promotion techniques that work for nonfiction—even on the first book—that do not work for fiction. I don’t want to muddy the waters here. We’re discussing fiction in these posts.

Assumption #3: You have learned your craft well enough to intrigue readers. You know how to tell a good story, you have grammar, spelling, and punctuation under control, you create interesting characters, and you write what you love.

Assumption #4: If you have indie published your work, then your work has a good blurb, a great cover, and a well-designed interior. Your work is available in ebook and trade paper formats. (I also hope you have audio books, but for our purposes here, I’m not going to assume it.)

Assumption #5: If you have indie published your work, your ebooks are available in every ebook venue you can find. Your paper novels are in extended distribution on CreateSpace or Lightning Source. In other words,  if a bookseller whom you don’t know and never will know wants to order your paper book, that bookseller can call up a catalogue from a major distributor (Baker & Taylor, Ingrams) and order your book at a bookseller’s discount.

Assumption #6: If you are traditionally published, your books are with a company that makes the books available in e-book and paper formats, and your books are still in print. (If they aren’t, ask for those rights back and then publish the books yourself.)

Assumption #7: You have at least a minimal web presence. You have a website that readers can easily find. You have a list of your published books somewhere, also findable. You have some passive marketing in place. (A mailing list, a social media presence, or a contact button on your website. Something.)

Assumption #8: You have published more than one book. Most of what I tell you won’t work on one novel. You’ll need several—or at least a novel and some short stories. If you’re haven’t published much, make sure you’ve done 2-7, and write the next book.

Assumption #9: You will finish this discoverability series before you decide which of the things I mention is for you. Because one of the last posts I’m going to write is how to measure success. That should have been one of the first posts I wrote, but of course, I write out of order, and so it’ll go at the end. [VBG]

Those are the assumptions.

Now, I have one big WARNING:

Everything I say here, everything, MUST take place after you’ve finished writing your story/book/novel. Do NOT take ANY of this advice into your writing office. None of it. Be an artist: write what you love. When you’re done, then worry about marketing it. This new world of publishing allows us to write whatever we want and publish it. Please take advantage of that. When you write, be an artist, be a great storyteller, not a marketer or a salesperson.

I know, I know. Lots of warnings and assumptions. But I had to be clear, because these points are extremely important. I won’t get to everything this week or even the next week. So…you need to be on the page that I’m on to understand what I’m talking about.

I know that’s a long wait. The latest book should have been out in December of 2013. Instead, I give you this novella included in Fiction River #8, Moonscapes. The novella, titled “A Murder of Clones,” introduces an important new character in the Retrieval Artist universe, Judita Gomez. So this standalone tale should tide you over until the book comes out in December.

As for Fiction River, give it a try. Dean Wesley Smith edited this volume, which I’ve read cover to cover. It’s great. It includes fantastic writers like Steven Mohan Jr., Lisa Silverthorne, Scott William Carter, and Annie Reed. So lots of great reading for a great price. You can find the book in trade paper in your favorite bookstore and ebook in all ebookstores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords. (The audio book will be out sometime in the future, date to be determined.) Or you can subscribe to the series.  Enjoy!

First, my good friend Kevin J. Anderson did something we’ve both talked about for years. He collected the holiday stories that we used to write for our Christmas Eve celebrations. Back before our group of friends had much success, back before the marriages and the children, when we were all rebel writers searching for a cause, we used to gather on Christmas Eve. Too poor to buy elaborate presents, we bought everyone dollar gifts, and read brand-new stories to each other around a fire. Kevin made lasagna, I made kuchen, everyone made Christmas cookies, and we all ate drank and made merry until the wee hours. Kev and I discussed doing an anthology as all the writers made more and more sales and became recognizable names. We both pitched it to traditional publishers, but never got a nibble. Now that indie publishing has made these things easier, Kevin jumped on this anthology first.

I’m glad he did. He gathered all the writers, and got Myles Pickney to do a marvelous cover called “St. Nicholas, Dragon-Slayer,” and put together the best of the best stories. The anthology features stories by Kim Antieau, Kathy Oltion, Rebecca Moesta, Dave Farland, Dean Wesley Smith, Larry Correia, Debra Gray De Noux & O’Neil De Noux, and two stories each from me, Kevin, Kent Patterson, Jerry Oltion, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman. The anthology has several of my personal favorites, including Kevin’s “The Ghost of Christmas Always,” and “The Wereyam,” a classic known only to those of us who loved Kent Patterson (who died too soon to fulfill his destiny as one of the field’s great off-beat voices). You will love this anthology. It’s available in print from your favorite bookseller, and as an e-book from all the usual suspects, like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, and the like.

Kevin beat me to the punch on this anthology because I was editing another Christmas anthology for Fiction River, under my pen name Kristine Grayson. I have long wanted to edit an anthology Christmas ghost stories, so the moment we started Fiction River, I planned this anthology. Christmas Ghosts has stories from Louise Marley, Dean Wesley Smith, M.L. Buchman, Lisa Silverthorne, Carole Nelson Douglas, me, Anthea Lawson, and Mary Jo Putney. It’s also been getting stellar reviews. Publishers Weekly calls it “a sugary Christmas treat.” RT Book Reviews says each story is special and “guaranteed to jingle someone’s bells.” Library Journal says the book of eight stories has “several satisfying happy endings.” So what are you waiting for? You can get the book in ebook format on Amazon, All Romance, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and all other ebookstores. Or get the trade paper from your favorite retailer. (Or order it here.) You can subscribe to the entire Fiction River anthology series here. An audio version will be available shortly, and I’ll announce that when it becomes available.

And then there’s the latest book in my Grayson holiday series, Visions of Sugar Plums. You can read the back cover copy and find ordering information in this post, as well as information about the previous book in the series, Up On The Rooftop.

For those of you whose minds are still processing Halloween (and who are still chomping on Halloween candy), here’s a freebie for having made it to the bottom of this post. Until late Wednesday, you can hear my dark horror story, “The Hook,” on WMG Publishing’s weekly podcast. It’ll cost you nothing but some time. Do it while you’re surfing the net, and return every week for free story podcasts from a variety of authors.

 I have a new short story out in Jonathan Strahan’s Edge of Infinity  anthology. There are lots of great writers in here, and I’m happy to be among them. I’ve only just started reading, but I can already tell you that the introduction itself is worth the price of admission. So take a peek at Edge of Infinity. I’m sure you’ll find lots of good reading to start the new year.

I rather like that title. Hmmm. Might use it for a story some day. But in the meantime, my story “The Observer,” has been reprinted in LIghtspeed Year One, along with some stories by other folks you might recognize. Honestly, I was so excited about this collection, I pre-ordered a copy months and months ago–and forgot I was going to be in it. I get each issue of the magazine, but I really like the feel of a big heavy collection in my hands. You can find Lightspeed online or in e-bookstores everywhere. Or you can get this anthology at bookstores everywhere. Or do both.