Search Worlds Without End

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Imaginary Lands (1985), edited by Robin McKinley. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 12 (1986), edited by Arthur W. Saha.

The Blue Hawk is powerful, sacred, untameable. Its sacrifice will bring glory to the gods, strength to the nation - and the success of evil plans by sinister priests. But when the gods command Tron, a temple boy, to rescue the bird and overturn the sacrifice, the destiny of the kingdom is placed in his hands. Hunted by temple assassins, Tron and his hawk flee into the blazing desert, where they are helped by an ambitious young king with dark secrets of his own. And soon they find themselves at the heart of a ferocious battle for the future of their world.

When the Irish and the Scots turned green!

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September-October 2012. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection Earth and Air: Tales of Elemental Creatures (2012).

What magical beings inhabit earth's waters? Some are as almost-familiar as the mer-people; some as strange as the thing glimpsed only as a golden eye in a pool at the edge of Damar's Great Desert Kalarsham, where the mad god Geljdreth rules; or as majestic as the unknowable, immense Kraken, dark beyond the darkness of the deepest ocean, who will one day rise and rule the world. These six tales from the remarkable storytellers Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson transform the simple element of water into something very powerful indeed.

• Mermaid Song - novelette by Peter Dickinson
• The Sea King's Son - novella by Robin McKinley
• Sea Serpent - novella by Peter Dickinson
• Water Horse - novella by Robin McKinley
• Kraken - novelette by Peter Dickinson
• A Pool in the Desert - [Damar] - novella by Robin McKinley

This collection tells five tales of creatures who live and die by fire, tales of the present day and the prehistoric past. There is a confrontation in a haunted graveyard, of the Firespace where only dragons can survive, of a boy who is claimed by Fire, of a young man who chases the fireworm through dark tunnels of dream, and the long history of the Phoenix. With characters and storylines as enigmatic as fire itself, these five enthralling tales by master storytellers Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson are sure to intrigue and delight.

• First Flight - short fiction by Robin McKinley
• Hellhound - novella by Robin McKinley
• Fireworm - short fiction by Peter Dickinson
• Salamander Man - short fiction by Peter Dickinson
• Phoenix - short fiction by Peter Dickinson

In these collection, you will find stories that range from the mythic to contemporary fantasy to science fiction. You will find a troll, gryphons, a beloved dog, the Land of the Dead, an owl, a minotaur, and a very alien Cat. Earth and Air is the third and final book in a trilogy of shared collections connected by the four classical elements. It follows previous volumes Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits and Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits, written by both Peter Dickinson and Robin McKinley.

Ridiki is Steff's beloved dog, named after Eurydice, whom the poet Orpheus tried to bring back from the dead. When, like her namesake, Ridiki is bitten by a snake and dies, Steff decides that he too should journey to the Underworld to ask the King of the Land of the Dead for his dog back.

Mari is the seventh child of a family in which troll blood still runs. When her husband goes missing in a Scottish loch, she must draw upon the power of her blood to rescue him. Sophie, a young girl, fashions a witch's broomstick out of an ash sapling, and gets more than she bargained for. An escaped slave, Varro, must kill a gryphon, in order to survive. A boy named Yanni allies himself with an owl and a goddess in order to fight an ancient evil. A group of mind-bonded space travelers must face an unknown threat and solve the murder of a companion before time runs out.

All of these stories are about, in one way or another, the contrary and magical pull of two elements, Earth and Air. Each story showcases the manifold talents of a master storyteller and craftsman who has twice won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award, as well as the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

Table of Contents:

• Ridiki - (2012)
• Scops - (2012)
• Talaria - (2012)
• The Fifth Element - (2012)
• Troll Blood - (2012)
• Wizand - (2012)

The magic in the Valley is dying. In the forest, the cedar trees whisper the news. The age-old spell can no longer protect the land from its enemies. Four companions must find the sorcerer who conjured the ancient power. He has not been seen for centuries, hidden in the dark heart of an evil Empire. Their journey is desperately dangerous, and the travellers are shadowed by a mysterious figure. Is the shape-changing Ropemaker their ally? Or a deadly enemey? And does he command the deepest magic of all? That weaves and unweaves the great rope that is time itself....

ONCE THE 24 MOST powerful magicians in the Empire pledged to use their magic only to protect the people. But the promise that bound them has now corrupted them. They have become a single terrible entity with a limitless desire for domination. Only the Ropemaker may be able to stop them, but he has not been seen for over 200 years. Into this dangerous world come Saranja, Maja, and Ribek. They seek the Ropemaker so that he might restore the ancient magic that protects their valley. It is the task they were born to, but now it seems there is far more than the valley at stake should they fail. . . .