•   CONTENTS                                                                  Before Paphos
                         Spillage
           Art Gallery                                                        by Loretta Casteen
       o
                         By Nancy Kress
           Articles                                                           8 January 2007
       o
                         27 September 2004
           Columns                                                       It starts again. The
       o
                    Reprinted by permission; originally published in Thebaby begins to cough
      o Fiction
                    Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April and choke.
                    1988.
      o Poetry                                                           Locked Doors
                    When the coach broke for the third time, the
      o Reviews                                                          by Stephanie Burgis
                    second coachman was flung sideways over the
      o Archives    shrieking axle and down an embankment. He rolled 1 January 2007
                    in the moonless darkness, over and over, brambles
•   ABOUT US                                                             You can never let
                    tearing at the velvet of his livery and whipping
                    across his face. He uttered no sound. There was anyone suspect, his
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                                                                         mother told him. That
                    water at the bottom, a desultory and dirty little
                    stream: the coachman lay in it quietly, blinking in was the first rule she
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                    pain at the stars, blood trickling from one temple. taught him, and the
      o Contact                                                          last, before she left
                    A rat fell on top of him, squeaked once, and         him here alone with It.
      o Awards      scurried off into the brush.
                                                                         Heroic Measures
      o Banners     From far above, the coachman heard a sudden
                    feminine cry. It was not repeated, but after a while by Matthew Johnson
•   SUPPORT US      there came to his dazed ears a muffled sound, not
                    quite footsteps, as if someone were dragging along 18 December 2006
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                    the road above. The lady in the coach, or the
                                                                         Pale as he was, it was
                    First Coachman himself— The sound receded hard to believe he
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                    and died, and no other took its place.
                                                                         would never rise from
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                                                                         this bed. Even in the
                    He lay in the ditch without moving, at first
                    frightened that some bone might have broken in the darkest times, she had
•   COMMUNITY
                                                                         never really feared for
                    darkness without, later more frightened by the
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                    greater darkness within. No matter how hard he him; he had always
                    looked, there was nothing there. Not a name, not a been strong, so
      o Readers'                                                         strong.
                    place, not a history.
         Choice
                                                                         Love Among the
                    Only the lady in the coach, and the First
                    Coachman: the lady more beautiful than stars, the Talus
                         First Coachman portly and sharp-eyed as he            by Elizabeth Bear
                         peered back over his shoulder at his apprentice
                         hanging on behind, to make sure he was doing it 11 December 2006
                         right. He had been doing it right. He had stood tall
                         and unsmiling on the perch; the jeweled night had Nilufer raised her eyes
                                                                               to his. It was not what
                         flown past the shining sphere of the coach; the
                         horses' hooves had struck sparks from the stone women did to men,
                         road. They had passed other coaches, each a glow but she was a
                         in the darkness growing to an exhilarating rush of princess, and he was
                         beast and metal, and then the thlock-thlock dying only a bandit. "I want
                         away behind, leaving the scent of perfume and oiledto be a Witch," she
                         leather, with never a word spoken. And finally the said. "A Witch and
                         destination: leaping from the perch to let down the not a Queen. I wish to
                         carriage steps onto cobblestones so polished they be not loved, but
                         reflected perfect rectangles of yellow light from the wise. Tell your bandit