Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIV

by Unknown

  They would have kept sniping at each other, but I interrupted them. "That was not enough," I told the king.

  "Eh?" he asked.

  "You will need more," I repeated, my voice failing as I reached the last word and realized to whom I was speaking.

  "How could you possibly know that?" Lithra asked. "Let me see, child. Be prepared for a strapping when we return to the manor." But as I held the chalice to her nose and she inhaled, her brows rose.

  She scowled at Obur. "More, fool. Unless it's your intent to ruin the spell."

  Brows furrowed, Obur checked for himself. He grunted. "So it seems."

  He squeezed out one more large drop. "There. That will do." He pressed the chalice closer to me. "Do you agree?"

  "Yes. This is enough," I said.

  Obur chuckled. "It's not like you to have such a talented assistant, Lithra my sweet."

  "She is more gifted than I guessed," the countess admitted. I knew that sour tone. I had not won a reprieve from the strapping.

  "There is more, though," Obur said. He was radiant with cheer as he spoke. "Did you know she craves to take your place?"

  My heart began to pound. I turned to Lithra, and saw her eyes widen. It was the last expression she would ever wear. In a single efficient move, Obur stood, drawing his sword as he came up. He whipped the blade sideways. Lithra's head tumbled off her neck into the water. It disappeared into the duckweed and flotsam.

  I screamed while Lithra's body teetered and spasmed, blood spurting from the severed neck. As calm as a cat on a pillow, Obur snatched the flask of nectar from her fingers before her thrashing could send it flying.

  My screaming lasted until after the body had gone limp and flopped to the bottom of the dinghy. Then I began to sob.

  "I didn't mean...I didn't want...what have I done?" The words burned as they came out.

  I was a murderess. Obur had seen within my heart. It was true, I had longed to be in Lithra's place. To be mistress of a fine house, my life fixed with riches, beauty, admirers? I had always wanted it.

  "You will get over it," Obur assured me. "You will thank me, soon enough. Here. Hold this while I deal with the dregs."

  He handed me the flask. Somehow I summoned enough composure to grip it securely.

  Obur hefted the body onto the gunwale. Another shove, and it would fall overboard. But in that moment, all the weight of it was at one end of the boat, along with the weight of Obur and his accouterments. Before I gave it thought—before Obur could sense my intent and move to thwart me—I flipped backward into the water.

  When I surfaced, I saw an upside-down dinghy. The water beyond it was churning. Obur's head and arms shot into view. He thrashed about, eyes wild.

  "I will feed you your own toes!" he roared. I remembered the stories of how he dealt with captured enemies, and I nearly vomited. He had not been pulled to the bottom by heavy armor like the Duke of the Narrows and his men. Of course not. Obur did not wear armor. His skin was all the protection he needed from blade or arrow.

  Somehow, terror did not paralyze me. While he tried to work his way around the dinghy to get at me, I let go of the chalice, ripped open my bodice and wriggled out of my servant's gown. Buttoning the flask into the lady's friend pocket of my shift, I launched into the fastest swimming stroke I knew.

  When I had fled a full skipped-stone length of distance, I dared to glance back. Obur was still next to the boat. He had dispensed with his cloak and was trying to remove his boots, but the weight of his remaining garments sent him under whenever he turned his attention away from treading water.

  Any swamp girl learns to swim well. The king, like most folk of our realm, where local waters usually run cold, had obviously never learned to swim at all.

  I aimed for the one speck of dry land I had spotted while we were approaching the magical flower. I knew I had to reach it without delay. Dark reptilian forms were converging from the right and the left. I hoped they would ignore me, tasty morsel though I was, and head for Obur, who was still in water crimsoned by Lithra's blood.

  A tangle of lotus vines suddenly blocked my way. I knew them as a type that grows only along banks, not in open water, so I thrust my feet down. Finding I could wade, I fought my way through the tangle onto land.

  A stirring in the vines in my wake alerted me. I sprang high. Jaws snapped right behind my heels. I sprinted forward and began clambering up the twisted ropes of a strangler fig tree. The tree shook with the impact of a large body. Only when I had reached a branch in its heights did I look down.

  A crocodile was leaning on the tree at its base, gazing up at me with what I felt sure must be hope that I might tumble from my perch. Splatters of mud, flung by my scampering feet, dotted its snout. It opened its mouth, and I saw a piece of torn cloth in its teeth. At just that moment, I became aware that the breeze was wafting freely over my bottom. I reached back. My hand came away covered only by mud and swamp scum—and maybe a bit of crocodile saliva—but no blood.

  Gradually, my heart ceased pounding, and my breathing steadied. The whole time, the crocodile regarded me. Only when it determined I was not going to plummet into its maw did it stalk back to the water, emitting an almost doglike snort.

  Once through the lotus vines it swam with lethal purpose to join of its companions near the overturned dinghy.

  The spot was a chaos of churning water, thrashing crocodile tails, and bloody foam.

  "When the magic fades, it goes quickly," he had said. With luck, he was already dead. If not, at least he was too preoccupied to deal with me. I was determined to make good on my reprieve, and find places to hide where even a man with a king's resources would not find me.

  * * * *

  It took me a quarter of an hour of sloshing across brackish channels and crossing isthmuses of matted vegetation to reach one of the larger islets I knew I would find in the interior of the bog. The whole way I kept alert for crocodiles. Now, finally, that danger was receding. Reaching a spot well clear of the bank, where there was no brush to hide a large predator, I exhaled the terror I'd been hoarding.

  Behind me, water sloshed. Something parted the reeds.

  I spun around. The fear plunged right back into me.

  Obur stood at the edge of the islet. His grin was all teeth.

  His clothing was in rags, and what still held together was red and sticky. His skin was no better. He was oozing blood from dozens of punctures and bleeding freely from several gashes. But clearly, his magical invulnerability had not entirely forsaken him. His attackers had not been able to tear him to pieces, nor had they been able to hold him under and drown him.

  "Do you know what it takes to fight off crocodiles?" he growled. "You simply kill enough of them that the living decide they would rather feed on their dead brethren than bother with you anymore."

  He had lost his sword and his dagger in the struggle, and his right hand was one of the many parts of him that had been badly gnawed. He reached out with the left—an appendage easily capable of throttling the life from me if I let him get within range.

  "Now," he said, pointing to the place where my shift bulged from the presence of the flask, "we will finish our business. Don't worry. I'll let you live. One good whiff of the elixir and I will heal completely. How could I stay angry with you after that?"

  I turned and raced away.

  He snarled. I heard his heavy footfalls as he pursued me. He was gaining. His long legs gave him the advantage in a footrace.

  But ahead was the reason I had come here. A large cypress tree rose at the far edge of the islet. A circular platform awaited thirty feet up its trunk. At the same level, a stout rope was anchored, with a pair of thinner, parallel ropes attached higher up. The lines crossed over to a tree rising from the shallows to the west.

  I would like to think a squirrel could not have scaled that cypress as quickly as I did. There were no branches down low. I had to shimmy up. But my brothers had taught me well. I was too high for Obur to grab by the time h
e reached the spot.

  Now I had the advantage. I was far lighter than he, and I was not wounded. Reaching the platform, I began scurrying across the main rope, lightly grasping the thinner lines for balance. I was nearly halfway across the gap by the time Obur finished climbing.

  He tried shaking the ropes, but the main one was too thick, and the others too taut to let him succeed. Livelihoods depended on maintaining this arboreal highway, for many valuable parts of the bog are inaccessible even by rafts and canoes. If he had been able to use his sword, he might have been able to sever the lines. As it was, he was forced to continue the chase.

  Below us, a pair of crocodiles raised their heads off their sandbar and regarded us with interest. One of them opened its jaws. At the sight of the teeth, sweat burst from my palms, but soon I was past them and, breathless and trembling, reached the next platform.

  Obur was leaving a bloody handprint behind each time his right hand gripped the guide rope. He was making better progress than I had hoped, his natural agility compensating for his inexperience.

  I hurried on. From tree to tree we went—platform to platform through the mid-canopy. I was faster. Bit by bit my lead increased. The great danger was that I get careless and slip. I made sure not to go so fast I let that happen.

  Obur, on the other hand, threw caution to the wind and pushed harder. Gradually I understood. At least one of his wounds was deep. He was bleeding to death. If he did not catch me soon, he never would.

  Finally I was an entire rope-length ahead. I paused at a platform, ready to launch myself onward, but I saw that Obur had stopped at the preceding one.

  His breath was coming hard and ragged. He held the tree's bole for support.

  "Wench!" he cried. "You don't want to flee. Stop and think. What's done is done. You can't bring Lithra back to life. You must think of yourself now. Don't you want to live forever? I know you want it. Cooperate with me, and you will have it."

  He had realized the only way left to catch me was with persuasion. It wasn't a bad strategy. He was right in believing that I wanted the bounties of the Wine of Consorts.

  But I could not get the image from my mind of Lithra's head sailing off her shoulders into the mire. And I had heard the stories of Obur. They called him the Bloody.

  "What will you do, if I save you?" I asked.

  "I will give you what you desire. What more do you need to know?"

  "No. What will you do? For yourself? What will you fill the years with? What will you accomplish?"

  He brushed away flies from his face. Drawn by the blood, they were nagging him incessantly. By his delay, I knew just how much his power had faded. He was trying to look within me, to see what answer I wanted to hear, and then he would say it aloud. He could no longer do so. Instead, he had to guess.

  "I will do what I have done all along. I will make my realm greater. It is my destiny. Share it with me. I would like that."

  He had such a seductive tone. It was said that for all his love of battle and conquest, he had never forced himself on a woman. I saw how that could be true.

  But he had given me the wrong answer.

  "It is often said, the people of this land were happier before you came to rule," I said.

  He tried to rise, to come after me again. He did not have the strength.

  "You doom yourself," he snarled. "Can you not see that?"

  "I will have as much as I had before," I said. And more, because it would be a better world, with him gone from it.

  He pleaded for another hour, whenever he rallied enough to regain consciousness. I cannot say it was easy to keep to my choice. I cannot say I did not continue to be tempted. But my resolve remained intact long enough. I was, after all, of Dwarf Rebel ilk. We choose our dukes and kings with care.

  Finally the blood loss had its effect. Obur died there on the platform, hugging the tree.

  * * * *

  Only when the flies were crawling over his distended tongue and moving in and out of his open mouth without any reaction from him, did I realize I might not have to forego the riches he had dangled in front of me. After all, blood was still oozing from him—blood that might yet be able to be a catalyst for the Wine of Consorts.

  I retrieved the flask from the pocket of my shift. It still glowed with its eldritch energy.

  Tentatively, fearing that Obur might jump up after all and seize me, I crossed the rope bridge to his platform.

  Up close, I was able to perceive that his blood had not yet lost its magical potency. True, the power was fading, but only as fast as his body was cooling. I looked about, and as expected, found that the platform was equipped with a cooking pot, a brazier, and charcoal—swamp folk often spend days at a time on their foraging expeditions. I squeezed blood from his wounds into the pot until I was sure I had enough. It took far more than four drops, but that was no problem. I added the contents of the flask.

  The elixir quickened.

  In the end, I had to heat the mixture like tea in order to inhale enough of the fumes. I suspect Lithra and Obur would have found that step unnecessary. But it worked. I felt the energy radiating from my lungs into the rest of me.

  I shoved Obur's corpse from the platform. Descending, I dragged it to the edge of an embankment and let it tumble into the water. It was only right that Obur and Lithra end up together, even if it had to be in the bellies of crocodiles.

  Back on the platform, I studied the dregs of the elixir, learning what I could of its nature. I saved what did not steam away, but the dregs, once cool, became inert. I understood the one dose might be all I would ever enjoy. The effects would eventually fade. In ten years? Twenty? I did not know.

  In the meantime, the enchantment manifested. By the time I made it out of the marsh and back to the manor house, I was transformed.

  I was eighteen. I have not grown older. I doubt you are surprised that I chose endless youth as my bounty of the internal. Who would not want that? And in truth, I am not sure I could have influenced the magic to produce a different result, because the internal aspect is not entirely determined by reason and calculation. My body chose for me, seeking survival above all else.

  Second, I chose beauty. I could not help it. I was like Lithra in that regard. I had no love of being plain.

  The third bounty, regarding the aspect of the external, now there was where I applied what wisdom I could muster. I had carefully contemplated my options while harvesting Obur's blood.

  I did not need to have influence over people. I make friends easily. I had no desire to see their secret desires or to coerce them to loyalty. Instead, I gave myself power over magical lore. As I pored over Lithra's grimoire deck of tablets and unfurled her collection of arcane scrolls, passages that I needed would catch my eye, and I would study them until I grasped the implications hidden between the words. I was drawn to particular shelves in the libraries in particular cities where I would find the right page of the right volume to bring forth critical information I otherwise lacked. I would succeed in locating the right mages with whom I could bargain for advice or written materials that had other elements of what I needed.

  It took me less than three years to achieve the first of my two great goals. By then I had the knowledge necessary to create a viable catalyst for the Wine of Consorts. That is, I could make the female half. With a little practice, I found I could do it as well as Lithra, if not better.

  The rest was far harder. If it had been easy, others would have done it earlier in history. But after many years, I have achieved the second goal. I know I can teach a male adept of even moderate magical talent to craft the other catalyst.

  And so now we are here, my sweet man. Now you understand what it is I have to offer you. Tell me, what gifts would you have? What suite of three powers? Think carefully, for much depends upon your answer.

  Lord Shashensa

  by Therese Arkenberg

  The Dhoth had attacked Treseda's estate and burned her fields, and their armies were still nearby, so
the slave boy her steward found on her lands seemed to be the least of her worries. In fact, the boy proved to be amazingly helpful—and not just with the household chores.

  Therese Arkenberg is a student from Wisconsin. Somewhere between school, work as a page at the local library (oddly enough, that was my first job), and reading—she spends more time with a good book than sleeping, she manages to scratch out a paragraph or two of science fiction or fantasy. She has no pets, but keeps an extensive collection of stuffed animals. Her work has appeared in Kaleidotrope magazine, on the Raven Electrick website, and in the online anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments.

  #

  Treseda Nudoath never looked outside her window anymore. The fields were out there, the fields the damned Dhoth had burned, the fields her people had relied on to see them through the year. A thousand questions ate at her every time she looked at them—how would she pay taxes, what would they eat, why had the Dhoth ever considered her crop a threat? And she remembered the raid, the sick fear that turned to cold dread as her summer green fields blossomed in orange flame, then faded to dead gray ash... So she avoided looking at the fields, if she could.

  Unfortunately, that was hard to do when they lay outside her bedroom window.

  She could just change rooms, she reflected as she stumbled down the halls of Poncenet estate, rubbing sleep from her eyes. But that would be like an admission of defeat, and far too close to cowardice, in her own mind at least.

  "Your Grace." She looked up at the speaker, a tall man with slick black hair and eyes like chips of green glass. Treseda smiled at her steward.

  "Good morning, Jahennes."

  He returned the smile brilliantly, but his bow was apologetic. "Ah...I hate to disturb you so early, but...Faraden caught someone sneaking around the grounds last night."

  Her heart skipped. "Dhoth?"

  "No," he said quickly. "Rather, an escaped slave, Your Grace. We kept him in the loft over the stables, not wanting to disturb your sleep."

  "Thank you. I'll see him over breakfast."

  Breakfast, served in the dayroom by a sad-faced Heria, was modest: a bowl of porridge made of grains from last year's harvest, served from a communal pot, and a small yellow fruit from Treseda's garden in the courtyard. The Dhoth had burned the orchards.