| Date: 13 April 2011, 15:53
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If you can't find this volume, note that everything herein (except "Legacy from Sorn Fen" and C.J. Cherryh's introduction) also appears in Norton's collection _Wizards' Worlds_. Most first saw the light of day in non-Norton anthologies or in magazines. I've discussed them below in order of internal chronology, as best I can determine, rather than their order within the book or order of publication.
"Falcon Blood" (1979) - A Sulcar woman and a Falconer are the only survivors of a shipwreck - cast up on the land from whence the Falconers originally came, before they founded the Eyrie. If you ever wondered *why* Falconer men so hate and fear women, especially women who traffic in magic, here's your answer.
"The Toads of Grimmerdale" (1973) - In the last days of the Invaders' War, Hertha had been sent from her family's keep to an abbey for safety - only to meet an Alizon ambush en route. A band of High Hallack fighting men caught the Hounds before they turned to their captive, but they weren't rescuers. Now, on this last night before the Year of the Unicorn begins, Hertha is once again leaving her brother's keep - because she refuses to abort the child she carries, and she wants justice on the man who raped rather than rescued her. After making a plea at Gunnora's shrine, she seeks the ruins at Grimmerdale, to treat with those who may locate the man she seeks.
"Changeling" (1980) - The child whose conception precipitated "The Toads of Grimmerdale" has been born - with stigmata like those of the Old Ones with whom her mother, Hertha, dealt in her quest for vengeance. So Hertha takes the road again, this time seeking to undo the damage done, that her daughter Elfanor may be free.
"Legacy from Sorn Fen" (1973) - Set in High Hallack, immediately after the Invaders' War; first appeared in _Garan the Eternal_. As you may have gathered, Lord Imgry wasn't the only man of High Hallack to see opportunity amid the upheavals of the war; many dales, bereft of their lords and fighting men, provided a chance of betterment for fighting men who could lead. Nordendale, in the 2 stories mentioned above, was lucky in acquiring a good man by the time "Changeling" rolled around.
Klavenport hasn't been so lucky. Oh, Higbold wed Lady Isbel, right enough, but he's an unscrupulous, ambitious man. So much so that when Caleb, the mauled veteran taken on as Isbel's gardener, overhears one of Higbold's secret meetings, Caleb flees for his very life into uncanny Sorn Fen. But the real monsters in Sorn Fen aren't what you might expect...
"Spider Silk" (1976) - Ingvarna, Wise Woman for the village of Rannock, had just enough warning from the Guardians of Estcarp to evacuate the village before the Turning - not enough to save the men of the fishing fleet (half were lost, in the tsunami and storm caused by the rending of the mountain range on the Estcarp-Karsten border). The night of the Turning gave as well as took away, though; Rannock's right of storm wrack brought them to salvage the raider ship washed ashore.
Its cargo, though, consisted of no wholesome trade goods; the raider was a slave ship that had touched far shores. Only one little girl, stricken with amnesia and hysterical blindness from the horrors she'd lived through, survived: Dairine, taken as an apprentice and fosterling by Ingvarna. She proves to have a great talent for weaving - enough to keep the interest of occasional Sulcar traders. So when, after Ingvarna's death, a young Sulcar captain tells her of the spider-silk weavers of Usturt, who produce priceless silk, but kill men from outside on sight. Might they teach their art to a woman who seems to be no threat?
"Sword of Unbelief" (1979) - An Elys and Jervon story, set near the end of the Invaders' War (a.k.a. the Kolder War); although the Weres turned the tide of battle, the Waste is still haunted by outlaws and other dangerous creatures. Elys returns from an exploration of nearby ruins to find that raiders have struck their camp - and they kidnapped Jervon rather than simply trying to kill him. And this world really *does* have fates worse than death, as Elys knows all too well, tracking the outlaws across the Waste, hoping to intercept them before they reach their mysterious destination.
"Sand Sister" (1979) - Set in the Tormarsh, in the generation born after the Kolder War. As told in _Witch World_ and _Web of the Witch World_ (and recounted here in passing from the opposing viewpoint), Koris of Gorm's mother was a Torwoman, one of the remote people of the marshes who are not quite of humankind. Their history stretches back very far indeed: back unto a day when they were nearly brute beasts, when in his loneliness, the Old One Volt took them under his wing. (They know he wasn't a god, but they revere his memory greatly.) They greatly love their homeland, so the Witches' sealing off of Tormarsh after the war doesn't grieve them much; Norton skillfully illuminates the beauty of the marshes, as well as Tor culture (which is not only ancient, but somewhat hidebound), through the eyes of the Tormaiden Tursla.
In these latter days, their people are gradually dying out, so even an odd child like Tursla is accepted, and like all children, raised in common by the clan. Tursla thinks of Koris often, wondering if he ever yearns for his Tormarsh heritage, feeling any lack, as she does, having been marked from birth as strange. She dreams - and ever she sees a pool of blue-green water surrounded by red-gold sand...
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