the wind's twelve quarters Read Online Free PDF

captured her and kept her under a spell all these long years, or had it been the Fiia with their strange arts? Then, drawing back a little, Durossa ceased to weep.  
    “You’re still young, Semley. Young as the day you left here. And you wear round your neck the necklace....”  
    “I have brought my gift to my husband Durhal. Where is he?”  
    “Durhal is dead.”  
    Semley stood unmoving.  
    “Your husband, my brother, Durhal Hallanlord was killed seven years ago in battle. Nine years you had been gone. The Starlords came no more. We fell to warring with the Eastern Halls, with the Angyar of Log and Hul-Orren. Durhal, fighting, was killed by a midman’s spear, for he had little armor for his body, and none at all for his spirit. He lies buried in the fields above Orren Marsh.”  
    Semley turned away. “I will go to him, then,” she said, putting her hand on the gold chain that weighed down her neck. “I will give him my gift.”  
    “Wait, Semley! Durhal’s daughter, your daughter, see her now, Haldre the Beautiful!”  
    It was the girl she had first spoken to and sent to Durossa, a girl of nineteen or so, with eyes like Durhal’s eyes, dark blue. She stood beside Durossa, gazing with those steady eyes at this woman Semley who was her mother and was her own age. Their age was the same, and their gold hair, and their beauty. Only Semley was a little taller, and wore the blue stone on her breast.  
    “Take it, take it. It was for Durhal and Haldre that I brought it from the end of the long night!” Semley cried this aloud, twisting and bowing her head to get the heavy chain off, dropping the necklace so it fell on the stones with a cold, liquid clash. “O take it, Haldre!” she cried again, and then, weeping aloud, turned and ran from Hallan, over the bridge and down the long, broad steps, and darting off eastward into the forest of the mountainside like some wild thing escaping, was gone.  

APRIL IN PARIS

    This is the first story I ever got paid for; the second story I ever got published; and maybe the thirtieth or fortieth story I wrote. I had been writing poetry and fiction ever since my brother Ted, tired of having an illiterate five-year-old sister around, taught me to read. At about twenty I began sending things off to publishers. Some of the poetry got printed, but I didn’t get systematic about sending out the fiction till I was getting on to thirty. It kept systematically coming back.  
    "April in Paris* was the first "genre” piece— recognizably fantasy or science fiction—that I had written since 1942, when I wrote an Origin-of-Life-on-Earth story for Astounding, which for some inconceivable reason rejected it (I never did synch with John Campbell). At age twelve I was very pleased to get a genuine printed rejection slip, but by age thirty-two I was very pleased to get a check. “Professionalism” is no virtue; a professional is simply one who gets paid for doing what an amateur does for love. But in a money economy, the fact of being paid means your work is going to be circulated, is going to be read; it's the means to communication, which is the artist’s goal. Cele Goldsmith Lalli, who bought this story in 1962, was as enterprising and perceptive an editor as the science fiction magazines have ever had, and I am grateful to her for opening the door to me.  
     
    Professor Barry Pennywither sat in a cold, shadowy garret and stared at the table in front of him, on which lay a book and a breadcrust. The bread had been his dinner, the book had been his lifework. Both were dry. Dr. Pennywither sighed, and then shivered. Though the lower-floor apartments of the old house were quite elegant, the heat was turned off on April 1st, come what may; it was now April 2nd, and sleeting. If Dr. Pennywither raised his head a little he could see from his window the two square towers of Notre Dame de Paris, vague and soaring in the dusk, almost near enough to touch: for the Island of