A Host of Furious Fancies by Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill

Author:Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Urban Life, Fantasy, Fiction, Contemporary, General
ISBN: 9781451638004
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2012-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

Greystone had told his story, all the while managing to entirely sidestep the subject of the Guardians, a feat of verbal terpsichore that Eric could only admire. If Hosea got the notion that the House had been built, and Greystone carved, to assist a group of protectors that no longer existed, Greystone had certainly never said so explicitly. And he’d certainly filled his narrative with a number of amusing anecdotes he’d never mentioned to Eric—like the night the Statue of Liberty had decided to go for a walk, why construction on the Second Avenue subway had been stopped, and the real reason the dirigible mooring tower on the top of the Empire State Building was never used. The gargoyle was a born storyteller, and he’d rarely had as appreciative an audience as Hosea.

“Well, laddybuck,” the gargoyle said, sitting back with a sigh of satisfaction around midnight, “that’s my story, and I’m sure our Eric will tell you his, if he hasn’t already. But what about you, Hosea Songmaker? How is it you come by your gift—and that banjo? And what brings you to the wicked city?”

Hosea smiled and shook his head. “Reckon I owe you the round tale, but I guess it ain’t gonna be all tied up as pretty as yours.” He sat back and stretched ostentatiously, obviously settling himself to tell his story.

“I was born and raised in a little place in the hills called Morton’s Fork. I hear tell it’s been a kind of a special place for as long as folks’ve lived there, but with everybody moving to the big city, the countryfolk are pretty much gone by now. My folks died when I was little, and I was drug up by my grandpappy and mammy. Grandpappy Jeb came by his shine honestly—got it from his daddy, and on back to where the first white folks came up into the Fork and settled down with the local folks. After he came back from the War—that’d be dubya-dubya-two—he settled down with my grandmammy Dora. They used to say she could play the devil up out of the ground with her fiddle; she was on the radio when she was a girl and everything. But she took one look at Grandpappy Jeb and said she hadn’t any mind to making records and touring and suchlike, and Grandpappy, he said he’d seen enough working for Department 23—that’s the OSS—to make him glad to settle himself in the place he belonged. Grandmammy said she’d got the banjo from her mammy, but she said it was just to hold it in trust, like. It’s pretty old, and I guess just about every part of it’s been replaced some time or another. She told me to always keep it strung with silver, and never to play it for any reason that was mean or unkindly.”

The OSS! Eric sat up a little straighter. Dharniel had always hinted that WWII had been fought on magical turf as well as the mundane, and this seemed to confirm some of the Elven Bard’s cryptic hints.

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