Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson by Greg Bear, Gardner Dozois Page A

asked him as they went out to the little plot of vegetables and herbs by the side of the house. A hen that was pecking at something clucked at the interruption and scuttled away.
    “I gave it up. Didn’t much want to, but I did.” Sure enough, Holger’s voice was plangent with regret. But he went on, “The miserable doctors have shown it steals years off the back end of your life. I still miss it sometimes, I will say.”
    “Doctors!” Theodo snorted scorn. “Me, I’d sooner go to a priest. He has a better chance of fixing what ails me.”
    “In this world, a priest would,” Holger agreed. “Not in all of them, though. Some places, a sawbones knows as much about the way your body works as you do about shaping iron. He knows what’s good for you, and he knows what isn’t. And smoking isn’t, and there’s no way in the world—in any world—to pretend it is.”
    Theodo hoisted his tankard. “Next thing you know, you’ll try and tell me beer is bad, too.” He laughed. So did his sons and Alianora.
    So did Holger, but he said, “There are people—bluenoses, we call ’em—across the worlds who’ll tell you just that. I’m sure not one of ’em, though.”
    “I should hope not!” Theodo reached for the knight’s mug. “Fill you up again?”
    “Much obliged.” Holger handed it to him.
    Alianora went back inside, too, to stir the porridge. As Theodo dipped out more beer, he spoke in a low voice: “I do see why you cared for him. And if you think I’m sorry to have a long lead now he’s back in the race, you’re daft.”
    “Don’t sound more foolish then you can help,” she answered tartly. “There is no race, nor shall there be.” There wouldn’t have been a race had Holger ridden back from the battlefield, either. But that was a different story, one that hadn’t happened. She’d done the best she could in the one that had.
    All the same, she poured herself a fresh mug before following her husband outside once more. Sometimes the world needed a bit of blurring.
    Holger had launched into another tale, about a folk he called Reds. Einhard and Nithard listened, entranced. “Now, the measure of the Reds’ damnation was that tens of thousands of their men took service with the Nazis against their own liege lord,” the knight said. “The measure of the Nazis’ damnation, though, was that almost every other realm in the world allied with the Reds’ liege lord, wicked though he was, against them.”
    Einhard frowned. “Even the realms of Law? Did not this wicked Red serve Chaos as much as the Nazis’ chief did?”
    “He served Chaos, I think, yes, but less than the Nazis did.” Holger gnawed on his underlip. “Things aren’t always so black-and-white in that world as they are here. They—” He broke off.
    A great white shape gyred down out of the sky toward the vegetable plot. Broad wings thuttered as the swan braked against air. Muscles in Alianora’s shoulders tensed, remembering those automatic motions. Only a woman’s muscles now, but still . . .
    Suddenly the swan was swam no more, but Alianna, her bare toes digging into the soft, black dirt of the plot. She studied Holger with frank curiosity. “God give you good day, sir,” she said; she’d always been a mannerly lass. “Who might you be?”
    His eyes almost bugged out of his head. He started violently and shaped the sign of the cross on his chest. “ Jesu Kriste! ” he barked out.

    For far from the first time that mad day, tears stung Alianora. Just so had Holger responded when she first transformed from swan shape to her own before him. Then he’d reckoned the very notion of magic all but incredible. He knew better now; else he’d never have found his way back to this world, this village. Too often, though, you forgot what a useless thing mere knowing could be.
    Holger stared at Alianna. She’d just turned eighteen. Her hair was red, though darker than Nithard’s. The spotless swan-may’s tunic covered enough of