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A collection of six short stories edited by Catherine Asaro published in 2004.
Winterfair Gifts (Lois McMaster Bujold): Miles Vorkosigan is getting married
in a few days and Ekaterin, his bride, is nervous has hell. Guests and gifts
are pouring from all corners of Space, and Roic, Miles' footman is very
impressed by Taura, the bioengineered femal super-soldier. When Ekaterin
suddenly becomes ill, Taura notices that a pearl necklace Ekaterin tried for a
few seconds the night before is actually covered in poison. Had she worn it
for longer time, as she planned to do it on her wedding day, she would have
died. Although the pearls seemd to have been sent by Admiral Quinn, Miles'
former girlfriend, ImpSec finds out they were sent by a Vor that Miles had
been investigating recently. The wedding eventually takes place without more
incident, and Roic ends up making out with Taura.
The Alchemical Marriage (Mary Jo Putney): 1588. Sir Adam Macrae, a sorcerer,
is a prisoner in the Tower of London for having threatened Queen Elisabeth's
life after she killed Mary Stuart. Master Dee, the Queen's sorcerer, asks him
to join forces with Isabel de Cortes, another sorceress, in order to repell
the Spanish Armada which is about to invade Britain. Reluctant at first,
scrying into the future convinces him to accept and he accompanies Isabel to
her manor on the coast. There, they try to combine their powers to create a
storm that will force the Armada to give up their plans. They fail at first,
but after Sir Adam recovers, they perform the Alchemical Marriage that bonds
forever two opposite forces (that is, they have sex together in the rain) in
order to combine their powers and repell the invaders. They eventually get
married since, although they are complete opposites, they are meant for each
other.
Stained Glass Heart (Catherine Asaro): On Lyshriol, a remote, agricultural
planet, Vyrl and Lily are in love with each other, but Vyrl is meant to marry
Devon Majda, a woman much older than him, from another powerful family, in
order to tighten the bonds between them in the Assembly. Vyrl then flees with
Lily and they get married in secret. They are caught some days later by their
parents and separated, with a threat of they marriage being canceled since
they are both underaged. Some time later, Vyrl tells Devon that she too should
marry the man she loves instead of making a political marriage. Later again,
Majda announces at the assembly that she abdicates as Matriarch of the Majda
family in favor to her sister. Vyrl is then free to stay married to Lily.
Skin Deep (Deb Stover): Since he died in a car accident two years before,
Nick has been working in Heaven in the Mortal Watch Division, where he
occasionaly keeps an I on his widow, Margo, who can't get over him. Nick is
then sent back to the world of the Living, this time as a woman named Raquel,
to help Margo find her True Love, Jared, she was supposed to marry when Nick
interfered (he planted a girl in Jared's bed and got Margo to witness). Taken
to a male strip club by her friend, Margo notices the main attraction is
actually Jared, whom she hadn't seen in years. She eventually learns he is a
DEA agent working undercover, trying to find how the strip club is involved in
drug dealing. A few days later, Margo and Raquel are at the club. They witness
the drug delivery and are made prisoner by the club's owner. The DEA assaults
the building but Raquel gets mortally wounded. Temporarily transformed as Nick
again, the latter confesses tricking Jared in order to get Margo, and also
that Jared and him are actually brothers. Nick/Raquel then dies and goes back
to Heaven.
The Trouble with Heroes (Jo Beverley): On Gaia, a remote Earth colony, Jenny
and Dan have been friends since childhood. Dan is a fixer, having kind of
magical powers caused by the planet, and he can mend all kinds of things.
Moreover, he's able to sense and destroy indigenous, pure-energy entities who
reduce humans and cattle to ashed in an instant. The entities seem to be
growing in numbers near the equator and refugees are pouring into the city of
Anglia. The fixers are all called to the front and Dan leaves after Jenny and
him have at last acknowledged their love for each other. Some time later, the
situation seems to have returned to normal, but the fixers seem to have all
disappeared. One man looking like Dan is camping outside of the gates of
Anglia. Nobody dares letting him in, since he looks so changed. Jenny sneaks
out at night to meet him. She learns that he organized the fixers in groups,
using one of them as bait to lure thousands of entities at the same time and
destroy them in batches using wild magic. But the baits were always killed and
at the end of the war there was only a handful of fixers left. Jenny and Dan
agree to become partners in life, and according to the laws of Anglia, the
city has to let Dan in with her.
Shadows in the Wood (Jennifer Roberson): In the forest of Sherwood in 1202,
Robin Hood and Marian are injured while fighting Normans. They flee and stop
to catch their breath in a very old part of the forest. Accoring to the
stories Marian's mother had told her daughter, the oaks in these parts have
human faces. When she touches one of them to show Robin, a man suddenly comes
out of the tree. He happens to be Merlin, who was under a spell of Nimüe and
he requests their help to retrieve Arthur's sword and return it to the lake.
Merlin guides them to the island of Avalon (the lake has now disappeared,
replaced by grass). Only women were allowed to the island, and men were only
tolerated. But Merlin tells them that both of them need to go. On the
“island”, Marian communicates with the spirit of the women who lived there
and indicate her the location of the sword. They retrieve the sword, take it
to Merlin, who throws it back into the lake (which reappears for the
occasion). Then Merlin leaves forever for the island.
