The One Tree of Luna Read online

  Spring came and one day, as Nerius was working through a particularly difficult chess problem, there was a clatter on the window. He looked up. The King crow pecked on the window, nodded at him, fluttered off. Nerius stared with growing surprise as the King of crows repeated the move.

  The next day, greatly daring, Nerius took his chessboard and the pieces outside into the garden. He set them up and waited, scanning the skies anxiously.

  Crows arrived, settled nearby and cawed. Nerius took a deep breath but remained where he was.

  A loud “Caw!” announced the arrival of the king crow. It took position opposite him.

  “Do you know the rules?” Nerius said. The king crow nodded. Nerius wasn’t convinced and carefully explained and demonstrated the movements of all the pieces from pawn to king. And then, as he’d read, his picked up a white pawn and a black pawn, shuffled them behind his back and held his hands out to the King of crows.

  “You pick,” Nerius said. The King crow tapped Nerius’ left hand lightly and Nerius exposed the black pawn. “I go first.”

  And the game proceeded. Nerius won. He was worried until the King of crows seemed to nod at him and the whole murder of crows flew off.

  The next day, Nerius ventured forth once more. And the king came and they played.

  They played and played as Nerius grew older, as his parents died one by one, and were buried in the family plot. They played through winter, through spring, through summer as Nerius got older and older.

  And Nerius Stimpton Poddlemore became the world’s greatest human chess player.

  One day, though, the King of crows came for his daily match but Nerius did not come forth. Days passed and other humans came and took a body from the old Poddlemore house and the place was only surrounded by crows as Nerius’ remains were buried up on the hill with his parents.

  On his grave, strangely to all the villagers, he had ordered a chess board made of marble.

  Years passed.

  One day the Poddlemore house was full again. There was another little boy with an equally unfortunate name.

  And one day he came out into the back garden and heard a loud “Caw!” from above. He looked up and a murder of crows were winging their way toward him with a heavy burden. Awestruck, he stood rooted to the spot until the birds landed and laid a marble chess board on the grass in front of him.

  He looked at the crows and saw how the largest of them, the king of crows, hopped on the board and off again.

  “Do you want to play?” the boy asked.

  The King of crows cawed loudly. The boy turned and ran inside. In moments, he was back again — with a set of ancient marble chessmen.

  He set them up, took two pawns, black and white, and put them behind his back, then put his hands out again and said to the king of crows, “You pick.”

  Acknowledgments

  This anthology is a collection of short stories that I originally published under the title, Six.

  Since then, friends have given me several good suggestions, the best of which were “Get a better title!” and “Get a better cover!”

  So I did and I did. And, because I always liked illustrations, there’s an illustration for each story.

  I would like to thank Margaret Johnson for her brilliant marketing advice: “Your cover sucks, get a better one.”

  To that end I received invaluable help from Jon del Arroz for taking me under his wing cover-wise, telling me that my original cover idea was not evocative of the stories and arranging for an inker and colorist. Thanks, Jon!

  I would also like to thank Heide Nichols who has been such an ardent fan of these stories that she’s been promoting them to everyone she can. She tells me that high school students loved Six because it was less daunting than larger volumes. I hope that increasing that number to seven (with the inclusion of Robin Redbreast) won’t put them off.

  Finally, why I try to avoid errors, it’s rather in the nature of the beast that they occur, usually in the most embarassing places. For those, I take all responsibility and beg your forgiveness and understanding.

  — Todd McCaffrey, February 2014

  About the Author

  Todd McCaffrey is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. The second child of Anne McCaffrey, author of the Pern series, McCaffrey grew up surrounded by science fiction, fantasy, and plenty of dragons. His love of reading was supplemented by a fascination with space travel and exploration, and after growing up in both New York and Ireland he eventually earned a degree in mechanical engineering at the College of Technology (now Dublin Institute of Technology). He then earned his pilot license and subsequently flew solo across the United States—twice. McCaffrey has also served in the US Army and worked in computer programming. He is the author or coauthor of many books and short stories, among them Dragonholder: The Life and Dreams (So Far) of Anne McCaffrey and eight books in the Pern saga, including Dragonsblood. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Tree copyright © 1995 by Todd J. McCaffrey

  The One Tree of Luna copyright © 2011 by Todd J. McCaffrey

  Tribute copyright © 2005 by Todd J. McCaffrey

  Robin Redbreast copyright © 2011 by Todd Johnson

  Why I Shot My Car copyright © 2011 by Todd J. McCaffrey

  Men! copyright © 2011 by Todd J. McCaffrey

  Stone the Crows copyright © 2011 by Todd J. McCaffrey

  Copyright © 2012 by Todd J. McCaffrey

  Cover design by Neil Alexander Heacox

  978-1-4976-8944-2

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  EBOOKS BY TODD McCAFFREY

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