Legends of Australian Fantasy [Anthology]

724 Pages·2016·2.3 MB·English

by  Dann Jack

LEGENDS
of Australian Fantasy Edited By Jack Dann And Jonathan Strahan Scanned &
Proofed By MadMaxAU

Contents

Introduction: Homegrown Legends
Jonathan Strahan and Jack Dann To Hold the Bridge: An Old Kingdom Story
Garth Nix

The Mad Apprentice: A Black Magician Story
Trudi Canavan ‘Twixt Firelight and Water: A Tale of Sevenwaters
Juliet Marillier The Dark Road: An Obernewtyn Story
Isobelle Carmody Crown of Rowan: A Tale of Thyrsland
Kim Wilkins The Spark (A Romance in Four Acts): A Tale of the Change
Sean Williams The Corsers’ Hinge: A Lamplighter Tale
D. M. Cornish Tribute to Hell: A Tale of the Tainted Realm
Ian Irvine

A Captain of the Gate
John Birmingham The Magic Word
Jennifer Fallon The Enchanted: A Tale of Erith
Cecilia Dart-Thornton

Introduction:
Homegrown Legends Jonathan Strahan and Jack Dann We could quibble about
dates and times, about which particular starting point to choose, but for the
purposes of this particular book ‘ground zero’ happened some time in early
1961. That year an American editor, Donald A. Wolheim, spotted an
opportunity. There was, he believed, a flaw in North American copyright law
that would allow him to publish an out-of-copyright edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s
The Lord of the Rings.

Wolheim’s mass market paperback editions of Tolkien’s classic might not seem
to be particularly important at first glance. After all, Tolkien’s trilogy had been
published in England in 1955, had been well-reviewed, and was fairly well-
known. But it didn’t become a ‘phenomenon’ until Wolheim published his
‘bootleg’ paperback editions. In large measure Wolheim’s editions turned The
Lord of the Rings into the underground pop culture and international literary
classic that it is today, with major publishers producing ‘authorised’ hardcover
and mass market editions.

So how does all this lead into Legends of Australian Fantasy?
Well, we could argue the details, but The Lord of the Rings was the first
enormously successful secondary-world fantasy that sold to young and older
readers alike. Tolkien, an ageing English university professor, became the first-
ever fantasy bestseller. His work directly inspired Terry Brooks, whose novel
The Swords of Shannara — which attempted to create a more widely accessible
version of Tolkien’s work — became a runaway bestseller too when it was
published in 1977. That book, and its many sequels, went on to sell millions of
copies. That same year Stephen R. Donaldson published Lord Foul’s Bane, the
first volume in his The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a darker and more
challenging book; but still an enormously successful epic fantasy.

Within only a few years writers like Donaldson and Brooks, and later David
Eddings, Raymond E. Feist, Terry Goodkind, and Robert Jordan, proved that
readers the world over were not only willing to, but were desperately eager to
read epic fantasy adventures, and read them in enormous quantity. There’s little
doubt that their work inspired millions of readers, some of whom went on to
become successful writers themselves.

While Australia has a long tradition of creating wonderful fantasy stories,
especially for younger readers — Patricia Wrightson’s stories, the work of P.L.
Travers and others immediately come to mind — it took a little while for the
epic fantasy phenomenon to hit our fair shores. The stories told by Tolkien,
Brooks, Eddings, and Feist seized the imaginations of Australian readers; but it
wasn’t until the late 1980s (when Isobelle Carmody’s very successful
‘Obernewtyn’ series debuted) that an Australian writer really attempted to create
an epic fantasy adventure on a grand scale.

Novels by Martin Middleton, Tony Shillitoe and Shannah Jay soon followed
Carmody’s epic fantasy, but it took until 1995 for Australia to produce its first
bona fide bestselling fantasy writer. That year Sara Douglass’s BattleAxe was the
first title to come from HarperCollins Australia’s new Voyager imprint. It went
on to become a runaway bestseller and was, in turn, followed by wonderful epic
adventures from Traci Harding, Sean Williams, Garth Nix and many more.

Each year the fantasy and science fiction community gathers in a city
somewhere around the world for the World Science Fiction Convention. The
majority of readers picking up this book will most likely be unaware that it is
being published on the eve of the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, which
is set to be held in Melbourne for the fourth time. The last time WorldCon was
held in Australia, in 1999, this book would barely have been possible, and the
time before that it would have been completely impossible. Now it seems
inevitable.

This book is, we believe, something very special: a collection of eleven stories
written especially for this volume by some of Australia’s own legends of
fantasy. In these pages bestselling authors Garth Nix, Trudi Canavan, Juliet
Marillier, John Birmingham, Isobelle Carmody, Kim Wilkins, Sean Williams,
D.M. Cornish, Ian Irvine, Jennifer Fallon and Cecilia Dart-Thornton have
created brand new short novels set in their most popular ‘signature’ universe ...
or in a brand-new universe they are just starting to create. Here is a chance to
settle back into the familiar worlds of your favourite fantasists ... or to sneak a
‘first look’ at the characters and settings that they will be creating in future.

So settle back into your armchair and enjoy these glittering jewels of magic and
imagination. These stories will sing to you; they will shock, delight, and amaze
you; and they will transport you to dangerous, fabulous and unknown places.

Enjoy the trip.

We certainly did!
Jack Dann & Jonathan Strahan Melbourne/Perth, June 2010

<<Contents>>
Garth Nix was born in 1963 in Melbourne, Australia. A
full-time writer since 2001, he has previously worked
as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor,
book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller,
and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army
Reserve. Garth’s novels include the award-winning
fantasies Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen and the YA SF
novel Shade’s Children. His fantasy books for children
include The Ragwitch; the six books of The Seventh
Tower sequence; and the seven books of The Keys to
the Kingdom series. His books have appeared on the
bestseller lists of The New York Times, Publishers
Weekly, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The
Australian. His work has been translated into 38
languages. He lives in a Sydney beach suburb with his
wife and two children.

To Hold the Bridge:
An Old Kingdom Story

GARTH NIX

Morghan stood under the arch of the aqueduct and watched the
main gate of the Bridge Company’s legation, across the way.
The tall, twin leaves of the gate were open, so he could see into
the courtyard, and the front of the grand house beyond. There
was great bustle and activity going on, with nine long wagons
being loaded, and a tenth having a new iron-bound wheel
shipped. People were dashing about in all directions, panting as
they wheeled laden wheelbarrows, singing as they rolled
barrels, and arguing over the order in which to load all manner
of boxes, bales, sacks, chests, hides, tents and even a very
large and over-stuffed chair of mahogany and scarlet cloth that
was being carefully strapped atop one of the wagons and
covered with a purpose-made canvas hood.

The name of the company was carved into the stone above
the gate: ‘The Worshipful Company of the Greenwash & Field
Market Bridge’. That same name was written on the outside of
the old and many-times folded paper that Morghan held in his
hand. The paper, like the company, was much older than the
young man. He had seen only twenty years, but the paper was a
share certificate in an enterprise that had been founded in his
great-grandfather’s time, some eighty-seven years ago.

The Bridge Company, as it was universally called, there
being no other of equal significance, had been formed to do
exactly as its full name suggested: to build a bridge, specifically
one that would cross the Greenwash, that wide and treacherous
river that marked the Old Kingdom’s northern border. The
bridge would eventually facilitate travel to the Field Market, a
trading fair that by long-held custom took place at the turn of
each season on a designated square mile of steppe some sixty
leagues north of the river. There, merchants from the Old
Kingdom would meet with traders from the nomadic tribes of
both the closer steppe and the wild lands beyond the Rift, which
lay still farther to the north and west.

Despite the eighty-seven years, the bridge was still
incomplete. During that time the company had constructed a
heavy, cable-drawn ferry; a small castle on the northern bank; a
fortified bastion in the middle of the river, and the piers,
cutwaters and other foundation work of the actual bridge. Only
the previous summer a narrow planked way had been laid down
for the company’s workers and staff to cross on foot, but the full
paved decking for the heavy wagons of the merchants was still
at least a year or two away. Consequently, the only way to
safely carry loads of trade goods across the river was by the
ferry. The ferry, of course, was also a monopoly of the
Company, as per the licence it had obtained from the Queen at
its founding.

The ferry, and the control it gave over the northern trade,
was the foundation of the company’s wealth, nearly all of which
was reinvested in the bridge which would one day enormously
expand the northern trade and repay the investment a hundred-
fold. It was this future that made the old, dirty and many-times
folded share certificate Morghan held in his hand so valuable.

At least, he had often been told it was very valuable, and
he hoped that this was true, since it was the sole item of worth
that his recently dead, feckless and generally disastrous parents
had left him. The only doubt about its value was that they had
left the share certificate to him, rather than selling it
themselves, as they had sold all other items of worth that had
been handed down from his grandmother’s estate.

There was only one way to find out. The grim and cheerless
notary who had wound up his parents’ estate had told him the
share could not be freely sold or transferred without first being
offered back to the company, in person, at Bridge House in
Navis. Of more interest to Morghan, the notary had also
informed him that the share made him eligible to join the
company as a cadet, who one day might even rise to the
exalted position of Bridgemaster. Then, true to his miserable
nature, the clerk had added that very few cadets were taken on,
and those only after most rigorous testing which none but the
best-educated youngster might hope to pass. The implication
was clear that he did not think Morghan would have much of a
chance.

But it was a chance, no matter how slim. So here Morghan
was in Navis, after a rough and literally sickening three-day sea
voyage from Belisaere, a passage that had cost him the single
gold noble he possessed. It had been the gift of one of his
mother’s lovers when he was fourteen, not freely given but