Norton, Andre - Anthology

by Magic in Ithkar 04 (v1. 0)

  Affection shone in Ugtred's brown eyes. "You're more beautiful than Anima. She's only a puppet."

  Mere pushed her stool next to Ugtred's, and both hopped up on their perches as the curtain was swept aside and their partner entered, pushing back the black hood of his robe to reveal a smooth, dark, languorous face. His eyes moved across the two artisans absently and fixed on the mechanical bird perched on Ugtred's finger.

  The actor touched the wing of the bird thoughtfully, saying, "I sold two silver jumping fleas and took an order for a white mouse with red garnet eyes. Are you putting this bird on a stalk of asparagus, as the buyer instructed?"

  "Finches make their nests in hawthorns," observed Ugtred, picking up a fragile scrap of gold leaf with tweezers.

  "The farmer raises asparagus, and he gets what he pays for," stated Kavdah with a fluid shrug. "Let's have a look at Adamo."

  Without waiting for the two artisans, Kavdah pushed aside the curtain of an alcove and gazed down at the bronze figure of a man, strong-chested, with legs like pillars and the shoulders of a wrestler. The head had been riveted to the neck but gaped open like a bowl. Ugtred had not yet attached the face. Gears, wheels, and wires lay on the earthen floor.

  Ugtred watched Mere for a moment while he debated what he meant to say. Intently she leaned over the workta-ble, a quill pen in her short fingers. The design of a monarch butterfly came to life beneath her pen: segmented silver body and tissue wings, dainty as a breath.

  Firmly Ugtred declared, "If I'm going to finish the white mouse and the finch, you'll have to find another small man to sit inside Adamo. I'm your partner, not your slave, and it offends me to be what I'm not."

  Kavdah's classical face didn't change. He stretched his long legs languidly and poured himself a cup of wine from a flagon on the table.

  "Life is artifice, my clever friend. You make the toys, and I sell them. I've had an offer of nine hundred silver pieces for Anima."

  Mere's hand jerked, and a blob of black ink smeared the butterfly. "You can't—she's mine!"

  Ugtred said through his teeth, "Since Mere doesn't go with the mannequin, the buyer would only demand his money back. Unless he wants to spend nine hundred silver pieces for a lifeless doll."

  Kavdah said amiably, "I don't intend to cheat the yokel and have my hand cut off for fraud. I also don't care what he does with the thing afterward. But I'll split the proceeds with you, three ways, and you can make another Anima when you've finished the mouse and the asparagus. Have Adamo completed by next week, and Mere can sit inside him. Put a sword in his hand. I think a duel between myself and a mechanical opponent will draw crowds."

  The actor strolled away toward the stage, jingling coins in his pockets. "By the way, Mere, someone saw you at the baker's booth. Don't go out before dark, or the rustics will guess how the magical clockwork woman is animated."

  He wandered out toward the vintner's, humming to himself.

  Mere dropped her head into her hands, sobbing wretchedly. "I can't behave like a man. The only happiness I have is in being lovely for a few minutes a day."

  Ugtred's square face was grim. "Kavdah has always treated us as fair partners. He's too lazy to cheat us very much. I'm sure he thinks the offer is a decent one. But come with me for a moment, Mere."

  The two of them walked back to the long bench whereon lay the faceless bronze automaton. Kneeling, Ugtred reached into a hidden box beneath the bench and drew forth a hammered mask. He placed it across the empty head.

  The features were strong, manly, resolute, with a look of intent thought in the frowning brow.

  Mere exclaimed in wonder and touched the wide cheekbones. "Ugtred—Adamo looks like you!"

  The dwarf nodded curtly. "Haven't you ever noticed that Anima was made to resemble you?"

  Mere's green eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered. "Do I look like that to you?"

  Ugtred turned a wrench over and over between his hands. "I hate this," he said harshly. "I especially hate your feeling more beautiful when you're not yourself. I object to it with all the force of my soul."

  Ugtred paused and drew a harsh breath. His hands were trembling. "But I'll finish Adamo, and put a sword in his hand, and run Kavdah through, if you want to keep Anima as much as that."

  He swallowed once or twice.

  Mere stared at him, her green eyes wide. She twisted the hem of Anima's blue gown between her hands. Her lips quivered with suppressed emotion.

  She whispered, "How long would it take for you to finish Adamo?"

  Ugtred went white. Already he seemed to feel the hairy touch of the hangman's noose around his neck. But he only said calmly, "Midnight."

  Said Mere unsteadily, "I'll be back then. I have to think."

  When she pushed open the side flap of the tent and vanished into the twilight, Ugtred caught a glimpse of the other booths, bright with red and yellow canopies. He stood still for a moment, listening to the growls of the wrestling bear on the nearby green and the shrill whoops of the acrobats. He was alone with the two puppets.

  He worked steadily by the light of an oil lamp, riveting the forehead to the metal skull and bending down locks of wire hair to conceal the joint.

  The bronze face did resemble Ugtred's, in an idealized way. If fate had been kinder, he might have grown to be just such a tall, sturdy fellow. But Ugtred had long ago accepted his destiny. He was what he was: a craftsman, a world traveler, and the true lover of a true woman. Inches could not make him more a man.

  Hour after long hour passed before Mere returned. He recognized her quick footsteps long before she reentered the workroom.

  She handed him a fried meat pie folded into a semicircle, and another flagon of wine, since Kavdah had polished off the last of their bottle.

  She looked down at the completed body, and then at Ugtred, who was calmly eating his pastry and replacing his pliers and files in their slots in the wooden toolbox.

  'There's something I have to know," she said at last. “Something I want you to do for me."

  Ugtred wiped his hands on his leather apron and waited for her request.

  “Will you work him, while I work Anima? I want to walk around the fair with you, and around the town like ordinary people."

  Without speaking, Ugtred pulled from beneath the bench a bundle of clothes Mere had sewn. Together they dressed the automaton, pulling on its tight-fitting yellow hose, its woolen hooded tunic and boots. Then Ugtred pulled the bronze man into a seated position, opened the door in its back, and clambered awkwardly into the cavernous body. It was stifling inside, despite the slits in the door. Ugtred fit his legs into the stirrups of the stilts and forced his hands into the tangle of wires and pulleys that moved the arms and head.

  Mere was ready long before Ugtred. The movements of the female marionette were smooth and practiced as she took a seat beside Adamo.

  She spread out her billowing skirts flirtatiously and tilted the head slightly. Through the spyholes near the collarbones of the mannequin, Mere could see clearly the strong metallic form next to hers.

  She tried to imagine herself as Anima in truth, tall and lovely, as so often before on stage she had dreamed. And the handsome fellow sitting beside her was Ugtred as fate had meant him to be.

  She placed the pink hand of Anima over the golden-brown hand of Adamo. "I'm holding your hand, Ugtred— can you tell?" Her voice was rather hollow.

  His voice echoed roughly. "No."

  "Can you see me?" Mere asked. "You look so handsome."

  "No, I can't see you," replied Ugtred's voice. "You're inside the doll."

  Mere tried again. "Let me get a mirror. You practice walking, if you will, so we can stroll around Ithkar. It's a wonderful town, with a splendid temple. I walked down by the river and fed the ducks."

  She rose smoothly and glided into her sleeping quarters, returning with a small hand mirror. She held it out at arm's length, so both of them could be seen.

  But Ugtred was concentrating on working th
e levers and weights that controlled the legs. He spread the feet apart, then jerkily rose from the bench, balancing warily. It was difficult for him to judge distances through the spyholes, and his head was jammed into the figure's neck. He lifted one leg slightly and nearly toppled the automaton but caught his balance by bending forward. Sweat was pouring down his face, and he couldn't free his hands to wipe his forehead.

  "How do you feel?" Mere pleaded.

  "Give me a minute," he grunted, and waggled the hollow bronze arms.

  Grief muffled her voice. "You hate this, don't you."

  "It doesn't matter," he said firmly. "Reach me a sword, so I can practice for the duel. If I'm going to stick Kavdah, I ought to try and make it look like an accident."

  Mere wished she could see his face. The metal mask was expressionless.

  "You'd do that for me?" she queried.

  "For you, yes. I wouldn't do it for Anima."

  He heard the echo of her sigh. "I thought we could love each other better this way. But I can't see you or touch you or even hear you clearly. This isn't working out the way I hoped."

  Ugtred heard the rattle of ball bearings and the scraping of metal against metal as Mere released Anima's door and climbed out, then opened the door in Adamo's torso and helped him clamber out.

  Ugtred wiped his brow with his sleeve. His wide face was grim, but steadfast. 'Til do this every night of my life, if you like it," he stated.

  Mere's face was downcast. "I don't like it very much at all," she replied.

  Ugtred reached out and took her warm, living hand between both his own. "I'm touching you, Mere . . . can you tell?"

  She smiled faintly. "Yes."

  "Can you see me?" he queried.

  She nodded and lifted up the hand mirror. She saw his square, honest face and hers. Their gazes met in the looking glass.

  "Shall we walk down to the river, and feed the ducks?" he asked. "They must be hungry again by now."

  Mere hesitated, then said softly, "Ithkar seems a pretty town. I'd like to see the river by daylight."

  Ugtred lifted her hand to his lips and breathed for a moment on her ink-stained fingers. "I have a suggestion," he began. "Let Kavdah sell both the mannequins and give us our two-thirds. I'm weary of wandering from town to town. We'll open our own goldsmith's booth here in Ithkar."

  She withdrew her hand from his clasp and turned back to the worktable, where the metal finch lay on its side. Ugtred thrust his fists deeply into the pockets of his leather breeches. He was surprised at how roughly his heart was beating as he waited for her answer.

  It was a long moment before she replied. "Then you wouldn't have to put any more finches on stalks of asparagus."

  Ugtred slipped his arm around her shoulders, and she kissed him lightly as he silently thanked the gods.

  At last he said in a rather uneven voice, "Listen—can you hear the minstrels on the green? This fair never closes. Let's enjoy ourselves. FU even stake you to a few coppers to bet on the wrestling bear.''

  She laughed, and they walked arm in arm from the stuffy tent into the rollicking sprawl of Ithkar Fair.

  FIRST DO NO HARM

  Mildred Downey Broxon

  A bitter wind blew Lithras from the north through Galza Pass. She had little but the dress on her whip-scarred back and her knife, brown with her captor's blood. The murder had been needful, but never would she wash that stain from her mother's steel.

  There was a blessing in the snow that came early in the mountains: her feet, thin shod, were so cold that the pain had stopped. This blizzard would cover her tracks. Her pursuers were probably long since back in camp, warm with mulled wine. She wasn't worth much trouble. No one knew of her bloodstained knife; no more had any been suspicious after the sudden deaths of each of her previous owners, ever since she was woman tall. When I began to bleed, my mother would have initiated me. I would have taken vows as a healer. Then they came. And slavery.

  “Could I do magic, I might have made things warmer." This, mumbled through lips grown thick. She must speak aloud to fight the cold. She fell to her knees and crawled behind a boulder. Ice lay crisp on sodden autumn leaves. "If I perish here, or if I reach Ithkar, it scarcely matters. I am broken and useless."

  She curled into a ball and burrowed beneath the snow.

  The leaves prickled. Once safe, she drew out her amulet. It was a small blackstone carving of a sekh, cat-bodied and winged. This was her lifegift. The wing had snapped on the night when soldiers slew her mother. She cradled the image in her hands and somehow felt warmed. She would live, or not, however it happened. Little did she care. Above her the wind whimpered and howled.

  The cold, unseasonable wind hit Ithkar, too.

  Anvadlim stood in a death room and twisted a length of metal cable in his hands, something brought by the Three Lordly Ones. As he twisted, it snapped. Colored wiring burst forth like guts. Useless! He kicked it across the floor.

  Other metal devices clustered around the bed where Father Silva lay at rest under a black pall. In the temple cellars, Anvadlim had found equipment left by the Sky Lords; it still worked, or so he thought. In the first flush of excitement he had thought the machinery might heal the old priest. Instead they had pinned him to a life of thinness and pain. They held no true magic.

  The useless machines were stilled, and the surfaces had begun to gather new dust. Silva's chamber would be sealed. Centuries would sift down before anything was disturbed.

  Anvadlim blew his nose. "By the swollen sinuses of Synkalos, I grow morbid. So, the Three Lordly Ones aren't the fount of all knowledge. Why should anyone be?"

  He had already done his grieving at the wane of life. No need to watch a shell decay. He closed the door and left the place of silence.

  The way was long and the stairs steep to his small workshop. He had not been there for days. Dust filmed his crystal vials, lay gray on his workbench, and scummed the water jars. He dropped a packet of instruments on the table and set water to boil. His tools were contaminated. Time to renew the stasis spell.

  The wavery window glass admitted dying light. Anvadlim opened to the crisp scent of cookfires and pine. Another season, and the fair comes again. Only last year he, with Silva's help, had closed it for fear of plague, though this had made the other priests wild. Silva had been a man of science.

  Behind him the door creaked. He knew who stood there even before the other spoke. "You'll be leaving us," Glykso wheezed. Anvadlim did not turn but stood looking at the crowds. "I hope you're satisfied," Glykso continued. "Now that you and your heathen ways have managed to kill the old—"

  Anvadlim wheeled. Glykso pressed his fat bulk against the workbench. Vials trembled. "The old what?" the physician demanded almost pleasantly. "Was it fool you were about to say? How inappropriate, if so." For once Glykso stood speechless. "And as for killing, death comes to all men. Even the most religious." Anvadlim gestured toward the door. "My task here is done. Father Silva no longer requires aught I might do. Enjoy your chants and rituals. Well may they serve."

  The priest left, and Anvadlim turned back to the pageant beneath his window. There, a lord's household fluttered in with pink-and-silver banners, shoving aside a small drab figure in a cloak. Young Krimar has come. May his new rank have sobered him, and may his father rest.

  The small drab figure had paused at the gate—Krimar's household was bowed through—and when it threw back its hood Anvadlim saw the dark braided hair of a northern woman. He caught his breath. But no, this waif was far too young. Since the war, all northern lore was ground into dust.

  Anvadlim finished packing his small wooden chest, stowed his few belongings in a knapsack, and closed the door on his workroom. It too would be a place of silence, for centuries. The living man wanted drink, and loud voices.

  Glykso himself greeted Krimar's party. He paused to survey their splendor. All seemed well, save for the young lord himself, who seemed peaked. This was not too strange. It was only last year— ''Welcome in the
name of the temple, Lord Krimar."

  The youth huddled deeper into his pink-and-silver cloak. The heraldic colors clashed with his sallow skin. "There is a draft." He waved one thin hand toward the open casement. A servant hastened to seal it, and another proffered a werthorn-inlaid box and opened the lid. The young noble rummaged amid carved crystal bottles, selected one, and quaffed a dose. He grimaced and coughed. "I must take care. It was within this very guest house—"

  "Your father's death was a tragedy." Glykso preferred not to dwell on the subject. Plague, at the fair! No matter what that charlatan Anvadlim said, the matter should have stayed secret. Money had been lost. "We all regretted his untimely passing. He was a great patron of the temple." Perhaps that would plant a suggestion.

  The young noble was not attending. He gazed around at the stone walls and shivered. "According to your custom, Glykso, I have come without any sorcerer, defenseless, to the fair. I require a bodykeeper skilled in the healing arts, one who can guard this frail vessel of life. I wish to engage one here at the fair. I must rest now. See it done."

  This whelp dares to order me! Aloud, Glykso spoke only to Krimar's steward. "You have my permission to see to it. If you require assistance, one of the novices will gladly advise you." The steward raised his right hand in salute. The palm was marked with a triangle and crescent moon. Glykso nodded to Lord Krimar and swept from the room.

  At Ithkar's gate Lithras could barely find coins to meet the entrance fee. She could have bartered, but she owned only her sekh amulet, her knife, and a few packets of herbs. As she rummaged in her pack a noble's retinue thrust her aside. They were ushered through without paying. A fat temple priest hurried toward them.

  When Lithras finally produced a few coppers, the novice on guard clanked them in his fingers, unimpressed. "What is your trade?" Behind him, a huge fair-ward shifted from one foot to the other.

  I cannot say healer. Lithras drew back her hood. The novice raised his eyebrows.

  "A woman of convenience?" He sounded incredulous. Her appearance was, she knew, scarcely seductive: she was skinny, her black hair was pulled back and tightly braided, and her homespun dress was an unbecoming brown. "That way." He pointed.