title: Bonfire Stories
author: Sevastian Winters
description: A California native, Master Story Teller Sevastian Winters lives with his family in British Columbia. His diverse interests include politics, religion, humor, and social justice. (which makes him fascinating on the internet and boring at cocktail parties) His stories reflect his own interests, but rarely his own viewpoints as he prefers to "ask his characters" what they believe and why!
zlib_text:   
  
  **The Magestone by Andre Norton and Mary H. Schaub**
  
   _ **CHAPTER ONE**_
  
  ![](Images/image00128.jpeg)
  
   **Mereth of Ferndale—her private journal during the voyage to Estcarp**  
   **(Dales calendar: Month of the Fire Thorn, Year of the Horned Hunter)**
  
  My valiant Doubt—if you could see me writing this journal, you would smile.
  No, not merely smile; I am certain that you would laugh to behold this aged
  Daleswoman wedged below decks at the height of a winter storm, striving to
  impose some order upon what the Sulcar fondly term their cargo accounts.
  
  I should have been reduced to fingering my tally sticks in the dark had I not
  recalled the clever bracket you crafted to steady a lamp no matter how violent
  the motion of a ship. Persuaded of its virtue by my sketches, Captain Halbec
  ordered his carpenter to construct several brackets for our cabins. Expecting
  the winter drafts that surge through every passageway, he had prudently
  stocked ample numbers of horn-shielded lamps.
  
  While my l