Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIV

by Unknown

  She started to rise, to run to confront her uncle for whatever good it might do, but the man shouted and struck the horses' rumps.

  The spooked animals galloped, their hooves beating a frantic tempo as they tore through the underbrush. Her uncle charged after them, screaming, "Bear attack!" Valyra beat her fists against a forest floor that felt all too real. She wanted to stop him, but knew she was only interacting with a recorded past. Nothing could change what had happened. Instead, she ran to her father and dropped to her knees beside him. His chest had already fallen still and he looked all too pale against the blood that darkened his neck and the soaked grass. She grasped his hand, which felt as real as everything here had, rubbed the calluses worn into a groove matching his sword hilt. Tears didn't streak her cheeks as she squeezed his fingers; they'd fallen for too many weeks before. Paying respect to him, she sat for a long time, contemplating what her father had meant to her (the time he'd surprised her with her first riding horse, the birthday he'd given her her own illuminated history book), how kind he'd been to her mother (bringing her flowers from the river, sitting with her at nights when she was at her sickest), and what he'd done for the kingdom (when no fighting was required in his ruling, he farmed as hard as he could for its residents). Finally, she knew she could honor her father best by carrying out his mission of protecting the kingdom—his people...her people—and ensuring Tolor would face justice for his treachery. She had to free herself from the tapestry. Finally, she released her father's hand and placed it over his heart, whispering "Good-bye."

  The silhouette of her ghostly uncle still hovered behind the trees. She ran toward him, intent on jumping back onto the great hall's floor. Instead, she bounded through forest, dress ribbons streaming behind her, until she hurdled into a meadow. She shook her head, then turned and ran in the opposite direction until she reached the hill with the cave. Stopping herself from following the bearers of her father's litter, Valyra ran south, then west, but she ran only through the familiar White Hills until her quivering legs collapsed underneath her skirts. Her gasping breaths seared her lungs. A sob croaked through her ragged throat as she realized she couldn't separate herself from the tapestry's stored past.

  She was trapped. As effectively as if her uncle had married her off to a tyrant in some distant land.

  Everything went black, not like night falling or with the warning sparkles of a faint, but as if the sun and all the stars had been plucked from the sky.

  When her vision returned, Valyra saw a village with gray thatched huts and fenced livestock nestled in a valley. The castle rose on a distant hill above—too distant to hear the sheep's baa-ing or the cattle lowing.

  Or the pending attack.

  Slithering through the tall grasses on the southern hilltop, men wearing animal pelts screeched and howled charging toward the village. She watched from the hillside as a man she recognized from the tapestry as her great-grandfather charged with a group of knights out of a barn and from around the northern ends of buildings to fend off the attackers. They all ignored her vantage point; she was merely a spectator to the conflict.

  Blackness and she suddenly sat in a village and identified her grandfather stopping a band of thieves—dirty, desperate men—from stealing tools, foods, livestock, whatever they could fetch from one of the villages under the castle's protection.

  Valyra realized the tapestry was replaying its chronicle of significant events. To return to the great hall, she only had to wait until the tapestry finished its current loop, then, when it reached near present, it would spit her out.

  Time was cut again, and her father stood in the back of a loaded wagon parked amidst the brown, drought-stricken grasses and handed down sacks of grain and baskets of dried fruit to hungry villagers. As the magical tableau replayed the kingdom's history, she rose and prepared herself for her journey back to reality. Anticipating leaving the tapestry would be as painful as entering it, she steadied her breathing. She crouched, preparing to flee her watching uncle who assuredly planned to silence her.

  Everything went black. Once she saw light again, she started running, sure she would feel stone flooring underfoot. But she didn't. Instead, she found herself running once again on the grassy hillside above the village her great-grandfather had protected. The tapestry had not released her.

  Her legs folded. She was trapped in the magic embroidery, doomed to repeat history while her uncle carried on with his nefarious plans.

  As the scene replayed, Valyra glanced over her shoulder through the tapestry. Time seemed to pass differently in the ghostly great hall than it did in the fabric. As the ages passed by her, Valyra saw her uncle seated on the throne, turned to study the tapestry, perhaps verifying she hadn't materialized or perhaps trying to learn some tactical advantage from past battles. In the hall, knights assembled to listen to her uncle. War would be coming. A war no more fair to one kingdom than the other. Valyra couldn't allow the attack on Ramsa. She had to escape before the knights marched to battle on Tolor's ridiculous campaign. She had to keep the tapestry from recording Tolor's coronation.

  The abbreviated history repeated over and over. Valyra stewed in impotent anger that she couldn't inform the knights, the ministers, the other royals of Tolor's treason.

  Tolor.

  Perhaps if the same magic worked inside the tapestry as she had used outside it.... Valyra knelt and placed her palm to the ground, willing the magic to return her to the White Hills. Her vision went black and she cycled to that point. Before her uncle struck the blow that killed her father, she rushed from behind the bushes and shoved him, but he struck her hard, knocking her unconscious with a single blow.

  She awoke in her great-grandfather's era. She focused all her anger on one target.

  She replayed her father's murder, this time hurling a rock at her uncle, but it missed connecting with his fat head, and he dispatched her as easily as he had before. The next time, she ran into the scene, trying to distract her uncle from his murderous intent, but it still didn't save her father. She warned her father. She tried delaying him, but her uncle merely rode back to murder him. Nothing could change how fate had ultimately woven itself. The scenes inevitably started again at the beginning, just as the sun inexorably started a new day in the world in which she had once lived. She could do nothing to save her father and grew tired of watching him die time and time again.

  For a while, she merely watched history take place as it repeated before her eyes. She ate when she felt the urge; the village crops seemed to satisfy her as food had in her previous life. She used her father's spell to slow the landscape's time so she could sleep an entire night in a village barn.

  On the hundredth or so repetition of the tapestry's history, Valyra tired of waiting, tired of being a spectator. The time for grieving was over. She couldn't—wouldn't sit idly while her uncle planned a war. She yanked a sword from the hand of a prone knight. Weighing it, the weapon's heft was unfamiliar in her grip and she was as awkward wielding it as the fireplace poker. As with her father, she wouldn't, couldn't change the past, so there was no harm in learning and practicing in the re-created simulation. Was there?

  She trotted down the hill toward an invader armed with a staff. As he turned from dispatching a villager, she hefted her sword, having to hold it in both hands. She lifted it to one side, hoping to swing it with force.

  The invader took no note of her pretty dress as he swung his staff as if she were a soldier. She blocked its momentum, but the impact vibrated up her arms. Her fingers almost let the hilt slip from her grasp. Her efforts were as clumsy as the punch she'd aimed at her uncle. Rushing past, the invader took his staff and twisted her feet so she tumbled, cracking her head so hard on the ground that it bounced up before smacking the packed hillside a second time. Her vision went black and her mind had just enough time to wonder whether this was her end.

  Though her head ached, she woke with relief to her grandfather's battle. As soon as the tapestry's memory returned her to a
scene, history was as it had been—exactly as it had always played out on the Great Tapestry.

  Again, she armed herself with a sword from a fallen warrior. She fell quickly. The next iteration, Valyra dispatched an invader, before falling to a second. She learned that anything on her transferred from each scene. She donned the cap and breast plate from a downed soldier to armor herself. The best sword stayed with her. With each recurrence, Valyra defeated more opponents. And wounds? She learned she could heal her own by using the magic in the tapestry to weave herself back together. She discovered from firsthand experience what the knights of a kingdom were expected to endure in the ruler's employ.

  She knew the battles by name—not merely the conflict designations of Tea Creek, Rock Springs, or Night of Fire—but the names of the participants—Simac who'd warned Sweetwater of the attackers; Wad who'd organized the digging of trenches around Mana village to prevent the fire from destroying it; young Daba who'd brought water to the wounded at Cold Valley. She knew how each of the warriors fought and learned to recognize who would fare well or poorly. She learned tactics to try and strategies to avoid in all the battles since her great-grandfather's rule. She began to read the signs of drought and learned how to dry food, expand hunting, and store barrels of rainwater, actions that would mitigate suffering.

  She practiced more than swordfighting. Helping her father feed the hungry, she respected him even more when she saw for herself the good he'd done for the poor people who offered him no additional tracts of land, no trade agreements, nothing.

  She understood better than anyone how all the tapestry's stories came together to weave the history of the kingdom. Living here had taught her more about managing a kingdom than working with her mother or her aunt to host visitors, patronize entertainers, check medical needs, or monitor the supplies to run the castle. This experiential repetition was better than an illuminated history book.

  She lost track of time, falling into the rhythms of the familiar conflicts and battles. She experienced more than just the primary tapestry scenes, visiting the era when her family was still alive. She decided to spend all the time she wanted with them.

  They didn't recognize her. Why would they? She was older than in their memory. She saw herself, too, recorded in these times; she was young and immature, prone to slapping her brothers in anger then dashing off, her scarves waving behind her. She barely recognized herself. The magic was cruel in its own way; her family forgot her each time she returned to them. But to be with her father. Her mother. Her brothers when they were all alive and healthy.

  She grew stronger parrying with her eldest brother.

  "You're a tougher fighter than I am. Going to challenge me for the throne?" His voice was light and teasing.

  Her reply come out low and her lips curled into a wistful grimace. "I would like nothing more than for you to sit on the throne."

  She forgot there was once a world outside this one.

  Following the long fight of Great Meadows that left her hot and exhausted, Valyra walked to the village's mill pond, laying her sword beside her. The weapon was now as common to her as hair ribbons had once been. Kneeling by the water, she scooped up handfuls and drank deeply. Once her thirst was quenched, she sat quietly, then noticed her reflection in the water. Grooves creased the corners of her mouth. She traced the lines with a fingertip. Turning her hands over, she stared at the rough flesh, her knuckles knotted and scabbed, her palms now as callused as her father's had ever been. How much time had she passed here?

  She looked at the sword hilt by her knee. After hundreds of clashes, Valyra realized if she could again face off a cousin with a fireplace poker, she'd do more than burn a hole in the tapestry. She'd certainly do more than miss landing a punch on her uncle. What had Tolor been up to while she'd visited her family?

  Wait. A hole in the tapestry.

  A hole.

  Everything went black and she was pulled into her grandfather's history. As he valiantly fought to protect a mother and child, Valyra realized she had to find a hole in the tapestry, the flaw in its magic, to break free. How could she do that? She'd explored all over the landscapes of the past and hadn't seen any holes. Or had she?

  She knelt and willed the tapestry to display her father's murder. When the White Hills reappeared, Valyra ran through the woods without a glance at her father's murder, then jumped from boulder to boulder up the steep hillside until she reached the cave where her uncle had hidden his murder weapons. She dived through its opening, feeling as if she were being strained through a sieve, and then plummeted onto slate flooring.

  Her ancient armor cushioning her tumble, she rolled upright as if under attack, but, blinking disorientation away, realized no battle took place; her uncle was holding court in the great hall. He looked no older than when she'd watched the tapestry reveal his murderous act in what seemed so long ago. As courtiers stared, she strode toward the throne.

  "What is-?" her uncle's voice boomed. The hall rustled as knights and others in audience rose, shouting.

  "Princess Valyra!?"

  "...dove out of the tapestry!"

  "...it showed a new scene..."

  Valyra's armor covered a dirty, tattered dress, now too small for her hard, muscular physique. Her ribbons had long since torn loose.

  "You murdered my father," Valyra said. This time, her voice wasn't shrill when she accused her uncle. "The people of Muirgana deserve better than you on the throne."

  "Who are you?" Tolor shouted. "You are an impostor pretending to be our frail princess!"

  She ordered the knights, "You must take that man into custody. He murdered the king."

  The guards looked uncertainly between Valyra and Tolor.

  She turned to them. "He faked the bear attack upon King Ered." When they still didn't move, her eyes met the faces of each of the knights. "You know your king wouldn't have fallen under those circumstances." She saw in their gazes a desire to believe her and a fear she might be correct about their new king.

  "We didn't!" her uncle shouted.

  "Let me show you." Valyra turned to the Great Tapestry, putting her hand against the thick fabric, commanding it to show the bear hunt.

  "You've planted false evidence to accuse us!" her uncle protested, the crown on his head sliding askew. "Treason!"

  He moved faster than she expected, leaping up, drawing his sword from its scabbard and charging her.

  She acted without thinking. She drew her own sword and twisted it around Tolor's with such force that she wrenched it from his hand, sending it tumbling to the slate. The clattering of metal upon stone echoed throughout the great hall.

  She raised her sword point to her uncle's throat, holding the blade perfectly steady. This was a far cry from throwing a clumsy punch.

  "You dare raise your sword to us!" he protested.

  "Wait." Valyra held her hand up toward the knights. "All I ask is for the truth to be known."

  The yarns rewove and displayed the tragic scene in the White Hills, when crimson blood flowed over white stone. The audience gasped as they witnessed Tolor murdering her father.

  The knights surrounded him.

  "But I didn't-" he protested.

  "The guard will find the murder weapons in the forest cave," Valyra said. On the knights' faces, she saw that she was no longer the spoiled youngest member of the royal family; instead of disdain or disinterest, she saw respect. "As we saw in the tapestry."

  Slumping, her uncle fell silent.

  Valyra smiled at the tapestry that had given her the power to offer testimony to truth.

  The captain of the guard snatched the crooked crown from her uncle's head and then knelt, offering the royal emblem to Valyra.

  * * * *

  A month later, the tapestry wove its newest scene filled with knights and villagers, decorated in brilliant, festive colors: Valyra's coronation.

  Owl Court

  by K.D. Wentworth

  Jolice was away when everyone in her villa
ge was killed—except for the women and girls taken away by the raiders. She went to the Owl Court for justice, and the Lady Owl accepted her, but Jolice first had to change so that she could rescue her kinswomen, and then she had to decide what was truly a just solution for both the women and the raiders.

  K.D. Wentworth has sold more than eighty pieces of short fiction to such markets as F&SF, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, Hitchcock's, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, and Return to the Twilight Zone. Four of her stories have been Finalists for the Nebula Award for Short Fiction. Currently, she has seven novels in print, the most recent being THE COURSE OF EMPIRE, written with Eric Flint and published by Baen. Her next book (also co-written with Eric Flint) will be CRUCIBLE OF EMPIRE, due out in March 2010. She lives in Tulsa with her husband and a combined total of one hundred sixty pounds of dog (Akita + Siberian "Hussy"). Her website is www.kdwentworth.com.

  #

  Jolice climbed the sacred mountain all day after the massacre, turning her face into the wan winter sun and doggedly tramping upward through the snow long after the light had given way to green-black shadows. Owls filled her mind, their wings gliding silently through the sky, their eyes immense and golden. If only she could reach the owls-

  She could not think about the dead back in the village scattered across the bloodied snow, grandfathers and toddlers, the fathers and brothers with their bows and knives and short swords still in hand. Nor could she let herself remember all those not there, the mothers and sisters and baby girls obviously stolen by raiders. Mother and her sweet young sister, Larsi! They were all gone!