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A young patriot wants only to save her country from tyranny, and finds inspiration in the simplest of objects...
Fiction
Fantasy
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost
Hoofs clattered on the rocky path, harnesses jangled. Dust rose and clung to the dark stains on the horses’ legs, the riders’ boots. Behind the last few horsemen, corpses dragged, banging and flopping over the stones. There wouldn’t be much left of them to dangle from the Palace walls when the Imperateur and his Riders got back to Couronné.
The dust drifted across the track and settled on a girl who crouched in hiding, staring after the company in despair. It didn’t matter where the troopers had been. Someone had let slip a word, out of spite or foolishness or torture, and the Imperial Riders had been sent. So there went the traitor, whoever he was, at the end of a rope—along with everyone who knew him. Let the country be at peace, every citizen loyal to the Imperateur. Tears traced the dust on her cheeks.
The rattle of hoof on stone moved past and away. Then, just as silence fell, Bella heard the slightest clear note, a ping of metal. She waited another moment, till the dust cloud hid her from anyone who might look back, then crept out to see. A lost harness buckle might buy a handful of olives for supper.
The fallen object lay right in front of her. Not a buckle but a horseshoe nail: square, sharp-tipped, and dully dark. Bella knew nothing of farrier-work—horses were for rich folk—but it seemed awfully long, stretching across her palm. She couldn’t imagine what sort of man would hammer it into a horse’s foot.
She stood up to watch the dust float away behind the imperial troop. It struck her suddenly how this shard of iron seemed to sum up the Imperateur’s domination of her beloved country: purposeful and brutal, inflicted on beings who could not resist, by men who cared for nothing but obedience.
Bella’s hand clenched around the nail. This could go on no longer. People were dying—men at the hands of the Riders and their spies, women and children from starvation. Yet the people were terrified. Betrayal lurked in every shadow, the steel-handed troopers a constant threat. How could her land be saved?
An old saying came into her mind. “For want of a nail...” How did it go?
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost
For want of the horse, the knight was lost
For want of the knight, the battle was lost
For want of the battle, the empire was lost
And all for the want of a little nail...
The nail seemed to grow hot in Bella’s palm, matching the sudden intense purpose that gripped her. One little lost nail. But it symbolized an enormous thing: Barassonne I, Imperateur of Sillon, was not invulnerable. This tiny defect, just perhaps, could represent the first crack in the shackles that fettered the Sillonais.
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost
Summer again. The day’s heat throbbed from the dusty stones, even now past midnight. The little band of saboteurs crouched in a cluster of thornbushes as Pierre, their sentinel, crawled flat as a snake to survey the Imperial outpost. A lone Imperial guard stood stiffly down below, scanning the empty desert.
There was no moon tonight. The stars cast a witchy silver glimmer, the perfect light to bewilder the sentry’s vision, while Bella and her companions had planned their route for days and could have walked it blind. As Bella waited, her hand crept to the bosom of her blouse where the horseshoe nail rested in its leather sheath, as it had for the past year. This little metal symbol had hundreds of copies now, passed secretly from hand to hand as a token of solidarity against the Imperial tyranny. But the original was hers, and as always she felt a surge of strength and purpose when she touched it.
It was time. Pierre twisted back and beckoned. In the hot, still darkness, bored and weary, the sentry had finally begun to nod. Moments later, Pierre’s cudgel granted him a deeper sleep.
In trained silence, the dozen patriots fanned out among the barracks huts. Gloved hands strewed thorns across the stableyard; others dumped scorpions into the boots that stood freshly greased in regimented rows. Bella herself slipped into the barracks kitchen, where she stirred handfuls of sand into meal sacks, wildspice into the breakfast gruel that simmered over the banked fire. The wildspice was her own, last-moment idea; the troopers would have an exciting morning when the herb reached their bowels.
In less than a hundred-count they were finished and had vanished back up among the rocks. Bold Pierre waited behind till everyone was clear. His task was the most dangerous, the most audacious: that of heaving the sentry’s unconscious body into the camp well. Rescuing him should distract the other troopers long enough for the patriots to escape, but the well was deep and the noise could not be muffled. Bella held her breath.
The splash of water rang like victory bells in the silence, and Pierre sprinted for the rocks as the first shouts of alarm rose up. A naked Rider, more alert than the rest, scrambled out to loose a flight of arrows after him. But they only clattered off the boulders of the hillside as Bella and the others yanked their comrade to safety. The saboteurs took to their heels, breathless with laughter and triumph.
The Imperial Riders—those who were fit to ride, anyway, and whose horses had escaped the thorns—would burn the closest villages as they always did. But they’d find no villagers there to wreak their vengeance on; only hovels, stripped and empty. And the news would spread to the other towns, to Couronné, to the Imperateur himself, that his power was crumbling.
For want of the horse, the knight was lost
The sun of a third summer blazed down, and the people’s joy blazed up to meet it. Bonfires had kept the past few nights as bright as the days. Sillon had a new future, as golden as the sunlight.
Bella’s heart filled as she gazed from her balcony across the Grande Place of Couronné. Only two weeks ago the Dreamers of Freedom—the Imperateur’s mocking nickname for the rebels, adopted with defiance—had marched into this very plaza with bold faces and beating hearts. Scores of them, clutching makeshift weapons and indomitable courage. And met, far from the massacre they dreaded, a welcome. Barassonne’s minions had thrown down their swords and cheered their deliverers, while the few remaining collaborators had vanished into the shadows like the vermin they were.
Now thousands were gathered here, jammed into a solid exultant mass. Some clusters of folk were trying to dance, trampling their neighbors’ toes and getting only laughter in return. Others drank, sang, or just howled in exuberance.
Beside Bella, Pierre stood at solemn attention—but his smile kept breaking out uncontrollably. He slanted his eyes at Bella. “A great day, my lady. A great day.”
“Ha! Never 'my lady,' Pierre my brave!” But Bella grinned. “A wonderful day for Sillon.”
On the parapet above them, the trumpeters rang out a brilliant fanfare. Pierre’s smile returned, broad and proud. He took a step back, and Bella moved forward to the balcony railing. The Imperial crown was so heavy she couldn’t look down or she’d lose her balance, but she knew that every eye in the Grande Place was on her.
“People of Sillon!” she cried, and everyone hushed to hear her. “Sisters and brothers! Today we build, together, a new future for our dear country! No longer will we fear, no longer dread the morning. I greet you now with the same joy you feel, the same pride. You have honored me with your trust, your patriotism, in asking me to become your Regent. I shall always honor you in return. My people, today Sillon is free!”
Their response thundered like an earthquake. “Bella! Bella! Mira-Bella!”
Late that night, Bella sat in her chambers alone, listening to the distant merriment that still rang through the city. Her women had helped her out of her gold-embroidered gown; the immense crown had vanished back into the treasury. She sat now in a silken robe finer than any she’d ever seen, on velvet cushions each worth a villager’s house, and fingered the horseshoe nail in its sheath between her breasts.
A tap on the door, and Pierre entered. He had a wine jug in one hand, two goblets in the other, and a smile on his face. “A nightcap, my lady?”
Bella lifted her head sharply, then returned his smile. “How many times must I tell you, don't call me that. You’ll make me vain.”
“My Bella, then?” He set down wine and goblets and pulled a cushion off the divan to sit at her knee. “Ma belle...”
She smiled down at him, cupped his strong brown face in her hands, and pulled him up to her. “My consort...”
But she felt restless. Soon she pulled away from him, rose, began to pace.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The Imperateur,” she said. She spun in her tracks to face Pierre. “He worries me. How can Sillon be free if Barassonne still lives?”
“He’s in the deepest dungeon in the Palace. And we know the dungeons here are very deep,” said Pierre with satisfaction. “I like to think of him meeting the same rats my father and yours did. But we all agreed that your plan was best. Mercy is far better than vengeance. A few days to give him a taste of what others have suffered, and then accept his parole and banish him—a solution worthy of my wise and gentle Bella.”
Bella drew her robe tight around her. The little leather sheath jabbed her breast, and she imagined the nail felt hot. “I have to see him tonight.”
Pierre smiled. “You’re so eager, my love. He’s probably still too proud to accept your clemency. But you may be right to present your offer soon, so he can think about it in his prison. Yes, let’s see him.”
The dungeon was horrific: cold, stinking, silent. It took two guards to haul open Barassonne’s cell door. Bella signed to them to leave, including Pierre with a turn of her head. They left a torch for her, and she stepped into the cell alone.
Blood smeared the face of the man huddled on the cot. Bruises blackened his arms and legs, what she could see of them under the heaps of chains. Her men had obeyed her thus far: he'd not been killed, but they’d had their time with the hated tyrant. He looked up at her with eyes sharp with recognition. “La Bella,” he mumbled, and grinned a broken grin. “I knew you’d come.”
In her fine robes, she stood over the former oppressor. “I’m not here to gloat, Barassonne.”
“Oh, no. They tell me you plan to offer me amnesty. How noble.” He gave a low, terrible chuckle. “Do you have that nail with you? Of course you do.”
Bella touched the sheath, through her robe. “It’s the sign of the revolution. Of your weakness, Barassonne. It’s inspired the Sillonais for two years, and brought you to the ruin you deserve.”
“Oh, it did that. And I suppose I do deserve it. But you should know, I didn’t at first. Oh my, yes, I was as noble and high-minded as you.” Bella stared, and the battered ex-Imperateur gave an amused grunt. “Hmm, hmm. You’re too young. You don’t remember how things were under Andruyen the Mad. He called himself the Césare. Blood ran in the streets daily; he was worse than I was. The people finally rose against him, and I at their head. And my inspiration was the tiniest thing imaginable: a horseshoe nail.”
Bella gasped. “That’s impossible.”
“Oh no.” The huddled man gave a wheeze that Bella suddenly realized was supposed to be a laugh. “Ah, damn these ribs—you Dreamers are tough, I’ll give you that. No, all I wanted was to save my country. Too bad I had all my old comrades executed afterward, they’d have told you it’s the truth. I found the thing in the dust one day, and was never the same again.”
“I’ll hear no more of this,” she commanded, her voice shaking. “You’re making it up.”
“Ah, ma belle, I wish I were,” and all sign of laughter was gone. “It’s probably too late, but I want to warn you about that thing. It’s evil.”
“My nail?” Bella demanded. “It’s saved countless lives by bringing you down.”
“I had a dream,” Barassonne continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “A nightmare, one night about a year into my reign. A demon appeared by my bed. It stood so tall its head brushed the ceiling beams—brushed clear through them, as if they were the spirits, not it. It was broad as a wall, with a naked hide as black as a winter night that shimmered with a foul green light. Hmm, it doesn’t sound that bad, but I promise you, ma belle, I wet the bed like a child. Then it spoke to me, and my bowels went too. It said it wanted the nail.”
Bella clutched the sheath between her breasts. She couldn’t speak. The man must be demented.
“Of course I said no,” Barassonne mumbled on. “And the demon laughed. My, if I hadn’t crapped everything already— It told me the horseshoe nail wasn’t what it seemed. That it was one of the demon’s own claws—and it showed me the gap in its huge paw, where one of its filthy black talons was missing. It said it had dropped the nail here among us humans for a game, just to see what we would do with it. Well, I wasn’t going to just hand my nail back, demon or no demon. It had made me Imperateur! Besides, I was witless with terror. All I could do was gape at the monster and of course hold onto the nail—just as you’re doing this moment.”
Bella snatched her hand away from her bosom. “What—what happened?”
“Ah, you’re interested now? Well, that’s all. The demon laughed again and said it could wait. That the talon would destroy me, as it had Andruyen, and it planned to enjoy the show. And then it vanished.
“I had to tell my chambermen I’d been taken by a fit of illness, to explain the bedding, but I never let go of that nail. Until... until one day I discovered it was gone.” For the first time, the man’s voice wavered, and the chains clinked. “It turned my heart to sand. You think your Dreamers won you this revolution? I tell you, girl, it was the nail. The demon’s Talon. It found another soul to feed on, and dropped me like an empty wineskin.”
Bella’s head was swimming. The horseshoe nail was her inspiration, yes, but it was she and her friends whose dreams and daring had won freedom for Sillon. Had brought her to the throne. “You’re lying. My nail, magic? Impossible! We worked for this, all of us together. We freed Sillon from your tyranny. Your evil!”
“Oh, I don’t argue that. But it’s you that’s, what?—Regent—now. Not anyone else.” Barassonne snorted. “Girl, you’d still be chasing goats in the hills if it weren’t for that nail.”
“No!” A terrible heat was rising in Bella’s breast. “You lie,” she snarled. “I know what you want. You want to ruin us, ruin me with these lies! I won’t have it. You’re insane, raving. But you’ll never tell, I’ll never let you tell!” She was gasping, sobbing, “Never! Never!”
She heard Barassonne laughing again, laughing. But his laughter sounded wrong. It bubbled and broke. Then her vision cleared, and she saw that he lay amid the piled chains, bleeding from face and eyes, his throat a ruin. But still he laughed. “Ah, ma belle. It has you now. This is more like the amnesty I expected. Best...of luck...my dear...”
She realized she was clutching the nail in her hand. It flowed with Barassonne’s blood. Horror skewed her sight so that the nail seemed impossibly long, jutting from her fist like a spike. Her robes were darkly spattered, her hands stained.
The blood seared her skin, roared in her brain. The vague dissatisfaction she’d felt in her chambers, only minutes ago, vanished in a burning certainty. Amnesty? Absurd! They never could have trusted him to keep these ravings to himself. Far better to silence him now.
The guards had left a bucket of water by the cot. Bella rinsed her hands and sheathed the nail. Calm now, she could see she’d foolishly imagined things: it hadn’t grown, it was still only a simple nail. She summoned the guards and met their shocked faces boldly. “I have saved Sillon from a terrible mistake,” she said. Pierre, blank with dismay, kept looking from her to the body and back. “The traitor Barassonne has rejected my mercy,” said Bella. “He is ill, unfortunately, but we will give him a fair trial. Then we shall ‘execute’ him under the law. And none of you will speak a word of tonight. Am I understood?”
The guards bowed aside, and Bella swept past them, up into the night, to the haven of her chamber. Pierre stumbled behind her. She turned her head, “Oh, and Pierre. I don’t think the title ‘Regent’ has quite the right dignity for the Lady of Sillon. Let’s just use ‘Imperatrice.’ Everything’s got Barassonne’s monogram on it anyway, BI. Bella Imperatrice has a nice sound.”
For want of the knight, the battle was lost
The peasants had been arguing for an hour now. The same excuses: the hot summer, the drying wells, the swarming flies and the sickness they brought. Bella stood up abruptly from her throne. “Enough.” The peasants and their podgy spokesman gaped at her. How the devil could the man be so plump if his goats were all dying the way he said? “Enough. The taxes are due. They will be paid. If you don’t have enough olives, I’ll take the goats. Away with you.”
Sniveling idiots. Bella turned with a flutter of silk and strode back through the curtains to her shady courtyard. A clap of hands brought maidservants with iced wine, sugared nuts, soft bread. Bella collapsed onto a cushioned bench and took a long drink of wine.
“My lady.” It was Pierre. Bella studied him over the rim of her golden cup. His tanned face had paled over the past year, here with her in the Palace. He looked pasty and anxious. Even his broad shoulders and curly black hair looked tired. The dashing boy who’d plotted raids with her, dared death for her, had faded away.
“What is it?”
“Your ceremonial sword. You left in such haste...” He held the long sheath out across both hands.
“Ah. Thanks, Pierre. Bring it here.” He obeyed, bending low so she could take it easily. Bella grasped the gold-studded sheath and slipped the sword out a few inches. The Great Sword of the Imperatrice of Sillon. She’d had it commissioned last summer, right after her coronation, and it had only been finished a few months ago. The blued steel gleamed and the gold initials BI sparkled along the blade.
She’d had the artisans embed the horseshoe nail inside the crystal hilt. Beneath the gold filigree that wrapped the crystal, the rough black iron was clear to see, dark and potent. Bella closed her hand around it and felt the strength shiver through her body.
“My lady,” Pierre said again.
Bella opened her eyes, annoyed. “Yes?”
“I wonder—might I have the favor of a few moments’ speech with you?”
He sounded so damned timid these days. “Yes, of course. What is it?”
Pierre perched cautiously at the end of the bench. “I was thinking, my dear—my lady—that you might have been a bit hasty just then.” Visibly bracing himself against her disapproval, he continued. “They were telling the truth, you know. This summer’s been terrible. Wells are going dry. There’s nothing to irrigate the crops with.”
“Summer’s hot every year in Sillon. That’s why we make such good wine.” Bella took a sip from her goblet, and bent her stare on Pierre. “Why don’t they just grow vines instead of barley?”
“They—the land they have isn’t right for vines,” said Pierre. “But that’s not it. Bella, you’ve been, well, pretty harsh with the people lately. Those executions last week—”
“Were perfectly justified. Don’t speak to me of it. Traitors, all of them. How dare they speak ill of Sillon, their own homeland!”
“It’s not Sillon they’re unhappy with,” said Pierre, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear. “It’s you.”
Bella’s voice matched his in softness. “What did you say?”
Pierre straightened, facing her. “I said, Bella— I said, the people are disappointed in you. You’ve grown hard. You were kind, before. You loved them, they loved you.”
“Hmph. People’s love can turn to hate like that!” she said with a snap of her fingers. “Am I right? See how it has! The best ruler is both loved and feared—it’s the only way to control a country. But if you can’t be both, then—” and she looked him in the eye, “fear is better.”
“Do you know what they call you?” Pierre asked.
Bella’s face softened to a smile. “Mira-Bella. The miraculous Bella. I’ve always liked the sound of that.”
“It doesn’t sound like that anymore. Your name is Sangui-Bella, now. Bella, please hear me—”
She roared to her feet. “Sangui-Bella! Bloody Bella? How dare they! How dare you!” The sword in her hands was light as a feather. Through the crystal hilt, the horseshoe nail seared her palm. “How dare you!“
Screams brought her back to herself. “Shut up!” she raged at her women. Pierre’s body lay there, legs still slowly twitching, his blood running over the white flagstones like wine. She tried to drop the sword, but the hilt clung to her hand, the nail filling the crystal with blackness...
She dreamed that night. Pierre came to her, the tanned, youthful Pierre she remembered from so long ago. Had it been only a year? Impossible. He stood at the foot of her bed and smiled at her.
Bella sat up with a cry and reached for him. “Pierre, my brave!”
And Pierre’s smile twisted into a snarl. The warm dark eyes narrowed to a brutal black gleam, the face became a leering mask. His clothes faded away to obscene nakedness as his body swelled like a cloud of filthy smoke to loom over Bella.
“You stupid little bitch,” rumbled the demon, and laughed.
A murky aura filled the chamber, dirty greenish-gray. Through it her rich surroundings still glittered faintly, dimmed and polluted. Bella clutched the covers to her breast, too petrified with fear even to reach for her Sword, lying on the table by her bed.
“You still have my talon, don’t you?” the demon grinned. At its words, the Sword’s hilt suddenly flared up, a foul green blaze that glittered off the demon’s hide. “He warned you,” purred the monster, “that greedy thug who had it before you. But by then its grip on you was too strong... and to give it up now would tear your guts out. Ah, it was a fine thing when I first thought of leaving my little bait among you weak-willed humans. It’s been delightful to watch you tear each other to shreds over it like starving dogs.
“Little whore, keep the nail, at my pleasure. For now. When your soul is ashes, when you become wholly mine, it will move on to its next victim. In the meantime, I will watch, and be amused. Live long, little fool—if you can.”
For want of the battle, the empire was lost
The people never came out to see her processions any more. Medruche, her chief advisor, said it was because they feared to foul her divine form with their lowly gaze. Bella knew that was ridiculous, but he amused her with his compliments. The lazy worm was probably sitting in the shade back at the Palace right now, sipping iced sherbets. But Bella chose to ride out often, even in the summer heat, with her gilded armor blazing and the Great Sword of the Nail at her side. Just to remind them all who she was.
Her spies reported regularly on all the secret midnight gatherings, the plots against the throne and stability of Sillon. The commandant of the Imperial Riders was swift and efficient at following up on these rumors. Bella had ridden today to view the results of last week’s cleansing. The troopers led her stallion carefully upwind of the ruins, and a perfumed scarf took care of most of the stench of burning. They’d had no luck with the villagers, who’d scattered like desert rats, but the troopers had torched their hovels as a warning against treasonous muttering.
The commandant sat his steed to Bella’s left, properly a pace or two behind her. A vile man; if she weren’t Imperatrice she might be afraid of him. But she knew that his lieutenants—she’d chosen them all—would kill him before he got within arm’s length of her. They all watched each other because they feared each other. And she was the one they feared the most.
Bella smiled.
“Well done,” she said, and turned her stallion back toward Couronné. The Imperial Riders hastily spurred their horses into line. She required a strict order of precedence, punishing mistakes with demotions, floggings, whatever came to mind. It was amusing to change her direction unexpectedly, then watch forty armed and mounted men falling over themselves to suit her. On a whim she decided to execute the last man to reach his place, just as an example, and paused idly to see which it would be.
Abruptly amid the confusion came an instant of utter silence, as if Bella had been stricken deaf. In it, the slightest sound rang out. A small, metallic ping.
For a moment Bella didn’t understand why it sounded so familiar. Then her eye lit on a thornbush a few paces away. In its shadow crouched a young boy, staring up at her with huge, hate-filled eyes. On the sand in front of him lay a long black horseshoe nail.
Bella seized her sword. The crystal hilt glittered: unbroken, but empty. The Nail had left her. “After him!” she screamed. But the disorganized Riders took too long to untangle, and the boy escaped.
That night Bella lay awake in her luxurious bedchamber. Lamplight wavered over the gilded furnishings, but she saw none of it. Words returned to her:
“I found the thing in the dust one day, and was never the same again...”
“The people are disappointed in you. You’ve grown hard...”
“I will watch, and be amused...“
Beside her bed, the empty crystal hilt of the Sword glittered mockingly in the lamplight. The Nail was gone, and with it all the fierce purpose that had driven her to the throne of Sillon. Losing it was tearing her guts out, just as the demon had said.
She’d walled herself in with toadies and brutes. She was alone. How much she would give to see Pierre again, bold and proud! But all that was left was the demon’s mocking illusion. Tears filled Bella’s eyes, and she flung herself among the cushions and sobbed.
At last she could only lie exhausted, the tears still silently flowing. She felt as drained as the wineskin Barassonne had spoken of. Without the Nail, she was nothing. How was she to live without its strength? The mere thought of her reign, the foul things she’d done so ruthlessly, set every nerve crawling with horror and shame. There was the true evil of the Nail, the demon’s Talon. It had snared her by her own compassion, her yearning to rescue her beloved Sillon. Its insidious venom had twisted her ideals into atrocities, innocent Bella into Sangui-Bella. Pierre... The remorse was unbearable. All these years, it had never once occurred to her to cry; she’d never wept since the day she first found the Nail in the dust. Yet tonight she couldn’t stop.
And as Bella lay there, desolate, that simple fact slowly awakened an enormous comprehension.
The Nail was gone. But not just from her sword. From herself.
Bella sat up, clutching a cushion to steady her suddenly trembling hands. She was not bereft. The Talon had abandoned her, yes, and taken all its brutal power with it. But the simple strengths she’d begun with—justice, conscience—still remained. Reviving and breaking her heart... but she still had a heart.
Across her opulent chamber, Bella began to see not a hideous black specter, but a glimmer of her old companion, hope.
How could this be? When Barassonne, Andruyen before him, had acquired the Nail, they’d lost their souls forever. Why should Bella’s be restored once the evil had slunk away? Was she stronger, purer?—no, that was arrogance as bad as the Nail’s! Or just that the Talon had owned her for a mere four years, while the others had ruled under its power for decades?
Perhaps Pierre could have told her. It might be as simple as love.
But guessing was a waste of time, and already Bella was planning. Even with the Nail, it had taken two years to depose Barassonne. The Talon’s new victim was only a boy, no leader yet. With luck, Bella would have time to act.
Time to purge her court, one by one, of the corrupted villains she’d encouraged. To find honest men among her troops and slowly, carefully, raise them to command. To set her spies against each other instead of against the guiltless. They feared her—ha! Now she’d give them a reason.
Her rapacious followers wouldn’t surrender their privileges easily. The Nail’s disappearance could not be hidden. Any doubts of her authority must be quashed, yet without harming the innocent. It would be the hardest, most dangerous work of her life. But if she succeeded, the revolution that Talon-possessed child was even now dreaming of would wilt before it flowered. Sillon would finally, truly, be free.
How dare that monster play this game with her land, her countrymen, for its own amusement! To free Sillon—to atone—yes, Bella would willingly face even a demon.
Now, she might even win.
And all for the want of a little nail.
Click Here for Easy-to-Read B&W Format
Copyright 2009, Ellie Tupper. All rights reserved. Ellie Tupper's stories have appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Every Day Fiction, and anthologies including the forthcoming Infinity Swords (Carnivah Press, ed. by Steve Goble et al.) and Witch Way to the Mall? (Baen, ed. by Esther Friesner, June 2009). Her first published story was in Dragons, Knights and Angels and she is delighted to have another in MindFlights.
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