Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIV

by Unknown

  Breath came easily now, the itchy thunder feeling of the air gone. The wind, damp with rain that never touched the desert floor, caressed her arms and back, helped her along, as her strides steadily shortened the distance between herself and the other.

  Then she was nearly even with the woman, who ran well for one so plump. "Who are you?" she called.

  "A friend," the woman said, and the distance between them began to grow once more. "Who are you?"

  Normally she would have answered 'Tiva of Ayantavi,' but she was certain that was not what the woman really asked. Who am I? She was Tiva, daughter of her parents, sister to her brothers, apprentice to Yongosona. She would be those things no matter what—they were external, not something inside. Who was she inside? Who was the real Tiva?

  Like a gust of damp wind, the answer came. "I... am a painter." She ran on, then said with more conviction, "I am a painter." Even though she was still an apprentice, even though she had painted only one thing that satisfied her, she knew she was a painter. The conviction raced through her body and left it tingling with a feeling like the earlier thunder itch, but much stronger.

  "And...?" The woman was farther ahead of her again, the wind shredding her words.

  "And much more," Tiva said, unable to put feelings into words. She had pushed a doorflap in her mind aside and found a whole room of being behind it, and the things there dizzied her. There was the seeing that Honovi would never be a painter, and that the shells on the west bank of the Sikanvahu River yielded a better pigment than those on the east. There was the touch of her mother's hand on her cheek and her father's strong grip as he lifted her higher on a cliff to reach an abandoned bird nest. There was the comfort of a purring cat and the discontent of never painting a Soul Wall. This and much more swirled into a cord that tugged her forward.

  As she struggled with that innerness, the woman had become a distant brown-and-green figure, moving across the desert with the grace and speed of a gazelope. Tiva pushed some of the tingling energy into her legs to strengthen her stride, and satisfaction washed through her as she gained on the woman once more. A question burned in her mind, one she thought the woman could answer.

  The woman seemed to sense that Tiva approached her, and she sped up. Tiva drew breath deep into her lungs, and the muscles of her legs adjusted to a new, faster rhythm. Her arms moved easily, open-handed, at her sides, and she sucked damp storm wind into her nostrils to fuel her body.

  The woman ran, and Tiva followed, gaining over time. Their speed grew, and burning began in Tiva's calves, the bones of her hips, her shoulders and back. Still she pushed to go faster, faster than she'd ever run, even in a sprint. It was harder to drag the damp air into her lungs now. In the dizziness beginning in her head, she almost lost the question she must ask. But the woman was just ahead, and in a moment would be close enough that Tiva could call out to her.

  Tiva did not think the woman was running; she skimmed the ground like a low-flying eagle. Even the swiftest runners of all the villages had never raced an eagle, but now Tiva ran, ran until she could almost touch the woman's green tunic. She gasped out her question. "How... do... I... see... souls?"

  The woman turned her head, on her face a grin like the young man's the day before.

  "You have already begun," she said.

  Darkness surrounded them. Tiva had not been watching where the woman led her, had just run, run with all her strength and will. The ground beneath her feet turned from the sometimes tricky desert sands to something firmer. The woman was a moving shadow among shadows, and Tiva poured everything she had left into staying with her. If she lost sight of the woman in this darkness, she would never see the harsh desert sunlight again.

  Tiva ran, straining body and lungs. The walls around her—for she was in a cave now, a cave that stretched on and on—glowed with pale green and yellow designs. There was no opportunity for Tiva to look at them; she noted their existence and ran on. Have I begun to see souls? she asked herself as burning pain and exhaustion coursed through her body. I do not understand Tiva; how can I understand others?

  A flicker of movement ahead in the pallid glow. The woman had disappeared into one of many openings in the cave walls. Tiva fixed her eyes on that one opening, indistinguishable from all the others, and pushed herself harder than she had yet. Pain shot up her legs, her lungs seared, but she reached the opening just as her strength failed.

  The effort was as difficult as if she had pushed through a solid wall. Then something blazed through her, from aching feet to the top of her head. She stopped, swaying and gasping, then took a deep breath that wasn't desperate, that didn't struggle for acceptance in overtaxed lungs.

  She was in a small cave, rounded like the inside of a pot, as she imagined the interior of the sandrat's den must be. The walls and ceiling shone in patterns and colors so bright that she had to squint to look at them. She followed the flow of a woman's hair as it became a mountain in a range, designs on a lizard's back. But the lizard was a cornfield, and the ears of corn, blossoms on a peach tree.

  One section drew her with a sharp internal sense of recognition. The painting flowed and built with the other patterns, but she felt a distinction. This was a pattern she had lived with, a pattern she had felt. Jewel-bright glowing colors shaped essence and personality in a way she could not describe, could only feel.

  She stepped forward, hand out to touch that section of wall, to understand what drew her to the desert tortoise that was also a storm cloud over purple cliffs.

  Someone put a brush into her outstretched hand. The strange woman's voice said, "Now is your time to paint, Tiva."

  There was no paint pot, no bark on which to mix colors, no fresh plaster. There was only the brush and the wall, and clear space beside or above or within Yongosona's tortoise.

  Tiva set brush to wall, drew a long curve that followed the curve of the tortoise shell but was separate, distinct. It was the same clear summer-sky blue that crushed gembugs made. She filled her lungs with the odor of sandrose leaves and sun-heated sand, felt the tingle of thunder weather far away, and painted a brilliant zigzag descending from the storm clouds.

  Then blue and red swirls—her dancing skirt at the spring gatherings—and the brilliant yellow taste of ceremonial corn cakes. Here her mother chanting as she ground corn, and there her brother's giggle. Ochre in all its shades—brown through yellow to red—built into the orphaned pup she was raising, a shaggy-coated dog herding sheep away from a cliff edge.

  The peach tree, the branch she had drawn in charcoal on the wall of another cave, grew spine tree fruit and chicken eggs, then swirled into feather ferns that grew in sheltered places along the Sikanvahu River.

  She sank to the cave floor exhausted, the brush lost somewhere under her skirts as she collapsed. She had not finished her painting—but how could she? She herself was barely begun. There were even places to fill in Yongosona's painting—her long life was not yet complete, and her painting, now joined with Tiva's, was vibrant yet.

  "Who are you?" A whisper filled the cave, sourceless.

  "I am...." Tiva? A painter? Or something more? "I am everything I have ever seen or felt or thought or smelled or heard. I am sandrats in spine trees and gembugs they crack between their teeth. I am thunder and flood...." There was more, but no words for the storm of perception.

  "Does that answer your question?" She could not see the woman whose voice filled the cavern with warmth.

  Tiva did not have to speak. Her soul, its walls thinned by understanding, communed with painters who had known her village in generations past. There had to be that understanding, and it could not be taught. She had won through.

  * * * *

  When Tiva sat up, she lay, arm across her basket, at the base of the path up to Ayantavi. Trembling, she pushed herself to her feet and settled the basket on her back. Had what she just felt, seen, done—had it been real? How could she paint with a brush that had no paint?

  Whatever it had been, real or a
vision from a god, it had changed her. She did not doubt, now, that she could paint. She could paint! Whether for Soul Walls or not, the painting had sunk beneath her skin, as much a part of her as her bones. The warmth of that knowledge buoyed her as she started up the path.

  Sun rays shot from beneath storm clouds on the horizon, bathing Ayantavi in pink-gold light. Tiva jogged along the plateau to Yongosona's home, the basket on her back no burden. Yongosona looked up from where she sat grinding pigments, the light erasing years, bringing back her youth.

  "There was a storm," Yongosona stated.

  "Yes. A flash flood in Dry Gorge." Tiva took the basket from her back and held it out to Yongosona.

  "You remembered the warnings."

  Tiva acknowledged that with a brief motion of her head, and Yongosona took the basket. She opened the bag, sifted its contents through her fingers. "Much dirt."

  "I'll sift the insects out."

  Yongosona set the basket aside. "Sit." Tiva dropped to the mat beside her. "Tomorrow, we finish Chumana's Soul Wall. And the next Wall—I think it will be Honovi's—you will paint."

  Tiva had wanted this since her eighth summer, when she came to Yongosona. She should be excited. But the knowledge achieved in the cavern under the mesa filled her, radiating from her body like the last golden rays of sunlight. "I must learn her soul."

  "Yes, you must."

  The sun set behind Red Cliff, and thunder rumbled, muted by distance.

  Little Red

  by Melissa Mead

  Learning either sword fighting or sorcery takes a great deal of time (measured in years, if not decades) and effort, so even if a girl has the ability to do either, she's still going to have to make a choice of which path to take. This can be much more difficult that it seems—especially if her choice isn't the one her family wants her to make.

  Melissa Mead's stories have appeared in SWORD AND SORCERESS 23, Aberrant Dreams, NewMyths.com, and various other places. She lives in upstate New York with her wonderful husband and two cats. Her Web page is http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/melissa-mead.

  #

  There once was a girl who always wore a little red hood and cape, so everyone called her Little Red Riding Hood.

  She would have preferred Red the Bloody Blade, but her mother wouldn't trust her with anything larger than a bread knife, and refused to give Red fighting lessons. Instead, once a week she sent Red off to her grandmother's to learn witchery.

  "But Mother, sorcery is for old women! Old ugly women, who like pottering about with smelly leaves and bat guano. There is nothing glamorous about bat guano. You're turning me into a Crone, Mother! I'm much better suited to be a warrior. Bruno the Blacksmith said he'd give me lessons, and the Amazons are always hiring. You're ruining my career aspirations."

  "Ethelberta Smith, we're fairy-tale peasants. We don't have career aspirations. Crone is a perfectly respectable occupation. Now take this basket of hearty, nourishing goodies to your grandmother. Don't even think about calling her an ugly crone, and please, try to learn something besides Introductory Candle Lighting."

  When Red's mother used her given name, Red knew she'd better obey. She took the basket and set off through the woods.

  Red knew that her mother and grandmother expected her to study magical plants along the way, but instead she practiced swordplay with the butter knife from the basket. Absorbed in her footwork, she paid no attention to the enormous wolf pacing beside her.

  "Ahem. This is the part where you scream and flee in terror," said the wolf in a voice like a dog gnawing on a bone. "Oh... and it's also the part where you drop that basket."

  Red whirled and pointed the knife at it. "Stand back! I know how to use this!"

  It sniffed the end of the blunt utensil. "So do I. You Humans grease your bread with it. Bizarre habit. Do I smell sausage?"

  "Yes, and you're not getting any of it. It's for my sweet, beloved and wise Granny, who lives just down that path."

  "Please?" the wolf whined.

  "No."

  "Just one little link?"

  "No."

  "Half of one?"

  "No. Shoo."

  The wolf growled, showing startlingly white, sharp teeth. It bristled and charged—past Red, down the path toward Granny's house. As soon as her heart restarted and she realized she was still alive, and not wolf kibble, Red charged after it.

  * * * *

  Granny's door handle had wolf slobber on it. Not good. Red knocked on a non-slobbery part of the door.

  "Who is it?" called a voice that sounded like a mastiff trying to sing soprano.

  Red winced, but decided to play along for now. "It's Ethelberta, Granny!"

  Long pause. "Who?"

  "Ethelberta Smith! Your beloved granddaughter. You held me at my christening. You cleared up that misunderstanding with those porridge-eating bears last year. You raised me until I was three. That Ethelberta!"

  Another pause. "Sorry, not ringing any bells."

  "Red hood and cape? That you made for me?"

  "Oh, THAT Ethelburger! My dear, sweet granddaughter. Of course. Come in, my darling child. You don't know how much I've missed you."

  Red shouldered the door open, dreading a scene of bloody carnage. She'd never seen Granny do anything impressive like shoot lightning bolts at people, and she could never fight off a wolf.

  The room looked pretty much like it always did: red-and-white checked cloth and a vase of flowers on the table, copper kettle hanging over the fire in the fireplace, the scent of Granny's latest potion hanging in the air. In the bedroom, the only things out of the ordinary were the flannel-nightgowned wolf in Granny's bed and a notable absence of Granny.

  "You brought me sausage, you sweet child!" said the wolf. "I could just eat you up."

  Red's heart was pounding. This could get ugly. She wished in vain for a sword, and tried to remember the spells that Granny had taught her. None of them dealt with talking wolves in nightcaps. Paralysis required certain mushrooms—or a stout club and good aim, none of which Red had. Besides, the last time she'd had a lesson in mushrooms... well, thank goodness Granny knew her antidotes.

  "What big eyes you have, Granny!" she exclaimed, stalling.

  "The better to see you with, my dear." The wolf watched her, seeming amused.

  Blindness! If the wolf couldn't see her, it couldn't eat her. But that took six ounces of crushed fireflies and a phoenix egg—way beyond any fairy-tale peasant's budget. Even Granny wouldn't have that on hand. "What big ears you have!"

  "The better to hear you with." The wolf licked its chops.

  Ears. Red listened. Granny's thatch-roofed cottage housed generations of skittering mice. A sudden influx of plump, spell-dazzled rodents should be enough to distract any sane predator.

  Trying to look casual, Red approached the bed—and the wall—and started whistling a tune she'd learned from a boy across the river in Hamlin. Enthralled mice crept out onto the cottage floor, but the wolf didn't even glance at them.

  "Why, what big teeth you have, Granny!" Red said, pointing at the mice and willing the wolf to take the hint.

  It didn't. "The better to eat you with!" The wolf sprang. Red screamed and cast her Introductory Candle Lighting spell.

  The wolf's tail burst into flame. It howled—and transformed into Granny, beating at the back of her nightgown.

  "Ethelberta Smith, that was the most ham-handed mishandling of a crisis I've ever seen. Didn't you wonder how a wolf could talk, or why it was wearing my nightgown? A simple Perception spell... and did you never notice the Wolfsbane in the vase on the table?"

  Red sat quietly under the tirade, the picture of chastised penitence. "But Granny," she said, "don't you always say "Any spell is the right one if everyone gets out alive in the end?"

  Granny stopped in mid-scold, and sighed. "I do. Very well; get those mice out of here and get lunch ready while I fix this gown. Candle-lighting... you'll be the death of me yet, Ethelberta!"

  "Oh, I h
ope not, Granny dear!" said Red earnestly. She busied herself with setting the table in order to hide her triumphant grin.

  If she could manage a few more months of this "incompetence," Mother just might reconsider giving her those sword lessons after all.

  Kindle books in the Sword & Sorceress series

  Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress 22

  Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress 23

  Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress 24

  Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress 25

  Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress 26

  http://www.elisabethwaters.com

  http://www.mzbworks.com

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2009 by the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  Cover design copyright © 2009 by Vera Nazarian

  Cover Painting: "Captain of the Guard," copyright © 2009 by Ahyicodae.

  Introduction copyright © 2009 by Elisabeth Waters

  The Casket of Brass copyright © 2009 by Deborah J. Ross

  Merlin's Clutter copyright © 2009 by Helen E. Davis

  Sceptre of the Ungodly copyright © 2009 by Elisabeth Waters and Michael Spence

  Material Witness copyright © 2009 by Brenta Blevins

  Owl Court copyright © 2009 by K.D. Wentworth

  Nellandra's Keeper copyright © 2009 by Teresa Howard

  Sages and Demons copyright © 2009 by Catherine Soto

  The Case of the Haunted City copyright © 2009 by Josepha Sherman

  Pax Draconica copyright © 2009 by Cate McBride

  Sea-Child copyright © 2009 by Cynthia Ward

  Ghost Masks copyright © 2009 by Jonathan Moeller

  The Vapors of Crocodile Fen copyright © 2009 by Dave Smeds