Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXIII

by Waters, Elisabeth

  Carefully Desi crept forward and touched the edge of the silver nearest her. It coiled as if it were alive and flowed away from the man and into her fingers. The pink jewel it had originally embraced fell to the floor and rolled away. Sanat swiftly hauled the man to his feet, his arm held behind his back now, her knife at his throat. "Summon the watch," she said.

  Desi put the lump of silver down onto the workbench and ran out into the street.

  When the watch came, Sanat told them she had overpowered the murderer, and they took the man's ravings for that of a madman. Weakly, Desi sat down on her work stool after they had hauled him away. She looked about the shop.

  "What should I do?" she asked Sanat. "Someone might believe him. Besides, I'm not sure I want to live here anymore. First Uncle Askread's murder, now this... "

  "Just as well. The Princess Majari has taken an interest in you and asked Prince Trakear to get the Jewelers Guild to move faster than a glacier in unearthing your Uncle's will. He left the shop and all its contents to a nephew on his side of the family."

  Desi looked around and gave a short, bitter laugh. Her work, all of it, left to someone else. "So what do I do?" she asked the other woman.

  "Desi, you are not just a Mender, as I thought, but a Maker. You have to be to do what you did... to make silver do that, to create that... and without even tools!... and with no training! Come back with us, when Princess Majari leaves Cascara and goes back to Tuorum to prepare for the wedding. We need a Protector; we'll hire you. Once you are in Tuorum, and you get training, you will be able to do almost anything! You have incredible power to be able to do what you did. In my land your gifts will be valued. Indeed, I beg you to come back with us. You have no idea... Makers are rare, sometimes only a few in a generation! You... you have to use these gifts. You are wasted here, mending bits of frippery, when your talents could change worlds!"

  Desi looked around the familiar confines of the work area that had been both a delight and a prison. A home... and yet never a Home.

  Could she go to a strange land, where she wouldn't know the language, where everything from her looks to her clothes would be different?... but where her talents would be trained instead of hidden... Where the food would be strange, and the stars different in the sky?... but where she wouldn't risk her life every time she did what felt as natural, and as right, as breathing... ?

  "It's all in the making," her Uncle had loved to say, while selling her work to his customers. Maybe it was time to make herself, to let her own patterns spring free and create who she was meant to be.

  "All right," she said.

  Daughters of Brightshield

  by Pauline J. Alama

  I have never quite understood why women are called the weaker sex, particularly when we generally outlive men. Perhaps some women in the past found it advantageous to foster this belief, so that men would underestimate us. Certainly the raiders in this story underestimated a village of "defenseless" women.

  Pauline J. Alama is the author of the fantasy novel The Eye Of Night and winner of a second-place Sapphire Award for the short story "Raven Wings on the Snow" in Sword & Sorceress 18. Her work also appears in the anthologies Rotten Relations, Mystery Date, and Witch High. Between day jobs as part-time grant proposal writer, full-time mom, and overtime cat-slave, she finds time to work on two new novels: The Ghost-Bearers, a heroic fantasy of war and peacemaking; and a comic fantasy about a cursed actor and a bear, provisionally titled Dancing With Zita.

  #

  I was born a chieftain's daughter, but for a time I was a slave. It was then that I learned of my heritage.

  I was twelve years old when the Scathan raiders landed at Salthaven on the Corholm coast. Their long, narrow ships cut the water like arrows, but before they reached the shore, they made shallow dives from the decks and swam with their swords strapped to their backs, rather than landing their boats like fishermen, like our men. Inexorably, like some drowned man's dying curse coming up from the deeps, they clambered up the boat-wrecking rocks at Seal's Cove, where we had believed no human boatman could land.

  They found our town undefended. I was the first to see them from afar, so I rushed into the Great House and told the news. "Where's Father?" I demanded, almost too angry to be afraid. "Where are the fighting men?"

  My mother's lips pressed tightly; she was as furious as I. "Either they're still in their boats, waiting for those pirates to make for the harbor, or—" She did not say, but shook her head, and I knew what dreadful thing "or" meant. "I told him he should have stayed to defend Salthaven, rather than taking the fleet out to challenge them at sea. As if honest fishermen could beat pirates in a sea-battle!"

  "I should have been with them," I muttered. "I can wield a sword. Seahawk showed me."

  "Hush, Linden," my mother said. "Let me think what to do."

  "I'll get Grandfather's sword," I volunteered.

  "You'll do what I tell you!" Mother snapped.

  My sister Darkshield cut in, "As if you could beat them back single-handedly with one rusty blade. Get yourself killed, and others with you, more likely."

  Of all the hard things I had to do that day, not striking Darkshield just then was the hardest. Instead I said, "Why couldn't I? Aren't we descended from Brightshield, the bold headwoman who single-handedly defended Salthaven against an army?" Mother had told us the story many times, and I would not fail to draw a lesson from it.

  But Grandmother, who sat nearby with her drop spindle, said, "Not single-handedly. You don't know the whole story, Linden. There's more to defending a village than flashing a sword."

  "So what are we to do? Surrender our homes, our herds, our honor to these brigands?"

  "Unless you will be quiet and let me think, that may be the only way of saving all our lives," my mother said. "Great Mother of All! They'll want to gloat over the chieftain's household most of all. They'll want us to bake them bread, serve them beer, wait on them, dance for their pleasure—" She ran her hands through her hair, distraught.

  But my grandmother calmly let her spindle twirl, spinning out a long yarn. "So be it," she said. "All those things can be spun into a cord to bind them."

  Mother turned to meet Grandmother's eyes. "A binding—?"

  "The knots of mystery," Grandmother said, and all the other women, even Darkshield, nodded, as if this explained everything. And perhaps, to them, it did; they'd all been initiated and learned the sacred stories. At twelve years old, two years shy of initiation, I only knew the tales told to children.

  "What's that?" I said.

  "No time to explain," said Mother. "Darkshield, get the priestess and the brewster. Bid them greet the strangers and lead them here. Tell everyone you meet to offer no resistance and take no risks. My man left our village undefended, so I and my kin will shoulder the burden.

  "Linden, stay here and spin with your grandmother, while I knead. Say nothing, but watch everything. Do you hear me?"

  I heard, but I did not understand. Sit and spin while the raiders overran Salthaven? Knead dough? Offer no resistance? I had heard what Scathans had done to unlucky towns along the Corholm coast: kill all the men; burn the houses; steal anything of value, even from the House of the Hallows itself; keep the women in chains, or sell them like cattle—or slaughter them like cattle if they no longer deemed them useful.

  Still, Darkshield was right: I could not kill them all, not by myself. Mother and Grandmother had some plot brewing. From the corner where Gran sat, I would be best positioned to see all, and find out what blow I could strike for the defense of Salthaven.

  Heart hammering, I sat silent beside Gran and took out my spindle. She smiled at me and whispered in my ear. "Watch my spindle dance, and do as I do. When your time comes, you must follow the spindle's path."

  She sang softly as she spun the wool, words that sounded like nonsense but were probably old words, strong words. I watched her spindle whirl and bob in time with her song, and it seemed to dance indeed, till my fear receded as
the rhythmic motion sent me half into a dream.

  As we spun, as my mother and her women started kneading the dough for bread, in came the Scathan captain, surrounded by a pack of warriors with swords bared.

  Taller and broader than Corholm men, the Scathans seemed to fill the Great House to bursting, even when most of their force was left outside. Their gleaming helmets, adorned with sidepieces shaped like boars' tusks, made them look like strange half-metal beasts, savage and invulnerable. More than that, it frightened me to think how strong they must be to swim with such a weight upon them. Bushy beards the color of wheat or fox-fur bristled out between the tusks of their helmets. Their pale eyes glinted with malice. The swords they carried did not gleam, dulled by old bloodstains, battered by cruel use, but these most of all drew our eyes. Beside the Scathans, Gladstar the Priestess and Coldbrook the Brewster cringed like slaves, not daring to look in their faces.

  My mother, her hands deep in the dough, bowed her head reverently, as if to the Hallows. "Mighty conquerors, you find none here but women and children. We are no threat to you. As Headwoman of Salthaven, I welcome you to my house. You have caught us in the midst of making bread; we have none left baked to adorn a feast fitting for you. Rest until the baking is done, and Coldbrook will refresh you with beer while we prepare a feast for you, my lords."

  The Scathan captain scowled. "Understand this: you offer me nothing that is not already mine to take. This village is mine. This house is mine. You are mine. You do not welcome me here as headwoman. As my slave, you welcome me to my home. Anyone who challenges my right to anything in this village dies."

  My mother bowed her head, while I wished fervently that my spindle were a lethal weapon I could wield against the captain. I comforted myself with the thought that perhaps it was: my grandmother had not ceased chanting under her breath, and I felt the rhythm of that chant in the rhythm of our spinning. I stared intently at my thread, willing it to wind around the Scathans' throats, to grip them tighter than bindweed on a rotting tree.

  But my mother spoke meekly. "We are at your mercy, Lord. If it please you, I will go on kneading the dough, and my daughters will dance for you." My face flamed as my grandmother thrust me forward to stand before the Scathans.

  "Gods, yes," the captain said, glancing from me to Darkshield, his eyes sweeping down her night-black hair to her shapely feet. "Yes, let them dance, bare-headed and bare-legged as they are, the brazen Corholm sluts."

  This remark mystified me almost as much as it stung me. Of course we were bare-legged and bare-headed: it was a humid, warm day in late spring, with a hint of summer thunder in the air. But the way the captain looked at us, I felt naked, and might almost have reached for my winter leggings and head-shawl to hide myself. The last thing I wanted to do was dance under those leering eyes. But my grandmother hissed, "Dance! You know how!" and shoved me between the shoulder blades—and as she did so, I felt her slip a length of yarn down the back of my smock.

  The thread tickled my back, tingling with Gran's spell, and I found that I did indeed know how to dance. As Gran's muttered chant became a full-throated song, I spun my young body in the same figures her spindle had shown me. Just far enough away so that our outflung arms did not collide, my sister danced the same figures, as though she, too, felt the spellbound thread. A dab of my mother's bread dough stuck to her arm, but she did not trouble herself to brush it off, dancing with abandon, as if it were the greatest pleasure to show off her grace to these raiders who might, for all we know, have killed our father and all his men at sea. She danced in ecstasy, but I danced in fury.

  If the Scathan captain noticed my scowl, he did not seem troubled by it. He watched us both with greedy eyes. Around him, his men also gathered to stare. Whenever another raider came into the Great House, he joined the circle around us. None who saw us went off again on their errands; all stayed, captivated. The brewster brought them beer, but they seemed already drunk on what their eyes took in.

  Our skirts swirled up as we danced, baring more of our legs to the raiders' lascivious eyes. As they muttered lewd comments to each other, I calmed myself by imagining how my grandmother's spell would twist this dance against them. Were we spinning the rope to hang the raiders? Would my dancing arms grow blades to cut them down?

  My mother and her women finished the kneading, and joined in the singing as they waited for the bread to rise. The young maids began to dance with me. We dancers and our audience overflowed the Great House into the square, till it seemed all the young women in Salthaven whirled in unison, our rhythms echoed in the creaking of the spit that the children turned, the scrape of the spoon an old woman used to stir the pot on the hearth, the thumping of the churn: all the preparations for the promised feast were part of the dance.

  Bread takes long to rise; it was a long dance. Did I tire? I must have, but I don't remember weariness. I remember my fear and my fury and my impatience for the spell to be complete so I could strike my blow against our enemies.

  At last my mother and her women left the dance and returned to their dough. They shaped it into loaves—braids, whorls, and knots of dough—and carried it to the great oven in the village square. We danced along with them, and the raiders followed as if on a halter-rope. The scent of baking filled the village and a hot wind blew from the landward side, just at the time of day when I would have expected a wet, cool wind from the sea.

  At last the bread was drawn from the oven, hot and fragrant. The butter was taken from the churn, the roast meat from the spit, and all the feast was ready on the table. My grandmother spun out the last wool on her spindle, and my sister and I collapsed, giddy with fatigue, in each other's arms.

  My mother proclaimed to the Scathans, "Come feast, my lords, and celebrate your homecoming." She offered the captain my father's seat, the hero's portion of the roast meat, and the most beautiful golden-brown loaf of bread. Into the braided loaf, I knew, was woven the curse we had spun all day in thread and chant and dance.

  But the Captain said, "You taste first, woman, lest you think to poison me."

  Before she could answer him, I sprang forward. "I will taste it, Mother!" In this, I thought, I could be as brave as Brightshield of old, though there was no sword in my hand. Let my willingness fool the brigands, even if I too must die for it.

  The captain looked shrewdly into my mother's face. "Well, woman?"

  "Very well," my mother said calmly. "Go on, child. Eat."

  I took a mouthful of everything offered to the captain: a swig of beer, a sip of broth, a bite of roast meat, and last of all, a fragrant morsel of the beautiful, deceptive bread.

  As I tasted the bread on my tongue, warmth and ease spread through me. Would death, indeed, be so gentle? I could not resist a second taste, though I had not been offered one. "Mother, this is the best bread you've ever made!"

  I hoped they would eat soon, before the fatal effects were apparent. The captain watched me anxiously for a time, and I found, to my surprise, that it was no labor to smile at him. What a fearful man, I thought. I felt almost sorry for him, hungry, with a feast before him that he would not let himself touch.

  But at last he fell to it, he and all his men. I watched them as avidly as the captain had watched me, waiting to see what the bread would do to them, to me. I noticed for the first time how hungry most of them seemed. So many weary days at sea, they had not tasted fresh bread for too long. Many of them were mere boys who smiled gratefully at the women who served them, as if they half expected to see their own mothers passing the warm bread and fresh butter. Some of the older ones bore terrible scars. Harsh need had driven them to the raiding life. I found I could no longer hate them. This rush of fellow-feeling caught me by surprise—though perhaps it was fitting that I should feel compassion for those who would share my death.

  And yet we did not die. Every man tasted the bread and praised it above the meat, even above Coldbrook's best beer. And they smiled, even on the women they had conquered, and made way at the table
for all to sit, conquerors and slaves together, conquerors and slaves no longer. By the feast's end, they had brought out their Scathan flutes and begun playing music for us. By morning, they had bundled up all their swords and sunk them in the sea.

  My father did come home with some of his men, though a storm had sunk some of the fishing-boats on their ill-conceived expedition to challenge the Scathans at sea. We met the survivors with jugs of beer and loaves of fragrant bread braided in the patterns of the spindle dance, in which the people of Salthaven and the Scathan raiders were bound together.

  The captain married one of the women widowed by the storm. As for me, when I came of age, I married his son, one of the youngest of the Scathans who came to raid us, and stayed to take the places of the drowned men of our village. It seems strange to think I once hoped to kill him and all his companions. He tells me it seems strange to him that he ever wanted to loot our pleasant village.

  It is in the nature of such spells to make themselves forgettable. People explain away the magic as an ordinary thing, a misunderstanding: surely the raiders never meant to conquer us, but only to settle among us, lacking land in their own country. But I was at the center of the spinning, and I know the truth: we women of Salthaven defended our village, not by a single heroine's might, but all together. We all are daughters of Brightshield.

  Undivided

  by Marian Allen

  There are legends of people (generally wicked sorcerers) who hid their hearts outside of their bodies so that they could not be killed. The warrior in this story purchased two charms that would let her do this, but what she did with them might not have been quite what her enemies expected.

  Marian Allen's stories have appeared in on-line and print publications, on coffee cans and the wall of an Indian restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky. She writes a food history column for the electronic recipe magazine Worldwide Recipes and blogs on Marian Allen's Weblog (http://marianallen.wordpress.com) and the group mystery/food blog Fatal Foodies (http://fatalfoodies.blogspot.com). She is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and of the Southern Indiana Writers Group, and is a regular contributor to the SIW's annual anthology. For free stories, surrealist poetry, recipes and more, please visit her at Marian Allen's Fiction Site (http://MarianAllen.com).