“Thank you very much!” Eirthe retorted.
Lythande chuckled. “I’m not calling you a sheep; I’m just saying that whoever put up this barrier either wasn’t much of a magician or wasn’t putting much effort into it.” Half the magician’s body followed the finger through the barrier, while the other hand reached out and grabbed Eirthe’s wrist. “Come along, Eirthe,” Lythande said, pulling her through.
The barrier felt a bit like the surface of the water when one dove into a lake—no, more like coming out of the water, for the air was hotter and drier on this side of the barrier. The heat increased as they continued up the slope toward the cone, and the air became more sulphurous and more difficult to breathe. They were about ten feet from the edge of the crater when the lava started to bubble out.
Lythande jumped quickly aside from the channel the lava was flowing down, dragging Eirthe, whose reaction to heat had apparently diminished greatly over the years. And a voice spoke from within the volcano.
“You are well come,” it said in pure soprano tones. “It’s been a long time since anyone sacrificed a virgin to me.”
Eirthe gasped, and promptly choked on the sulphur in the air. In the time it took her to stop coughing, Lythande had mentally run though about half the curse words she knew. I should have realized that barrier was too simple!
“What makes you think any of us is a virgin?” Eirthe asked, when she got her voice back. “Or that we came here to sacrifice one?”
“A sacrificial procession, including a virgin, is the only thing that can pass through the barrier I put up,” the volcano explained patiently. “I should think you’d know that, but then, it has been a long time.”
“You put up the barrier?” she asked the volcano. “Why?”
“I was tired of being the garbage dump for the entire district,” the volcano replied. “Anything—or anybody—they didn’t want down the hill they brought up here and threw into me. Diseased animals, unwanted babies, murder victims—and then they had that plague. The fools didn’t seem to realize that plague victims can give a volcano heartburn!”
“I can see how that might happen,” Lythande said, forcing her voice to remain calm. “So you put up a barrier—”
“And the only thing that can get through it is a virgin in the company of someone who wants something,” the volcano finished the sentence. “So tell me,” it asked Eirthe, “what is it you want?”
“Do I have to say right now?” Eirthe asked. “Can I have some time to think about it, and, uh, put my request into the proper words?”
“I should have thought you would have done that before you came here,” the volcano said. “But no matter, take all the time you need. You have until sunset.”
“What happens at sunset?” Lythande asked.
“If a virgin hasn’t been sacrificed by then,” the volcano said simply, “I erupt.”
~o0o~
“Oh.” Eirthe appeared to have been rendered almost speechless by their current situation. Lythande reached out, grabbed her arm, and towed her along as she retreated a little way downhill and sat on a boulder to consider their options.
“I’m sorry to have dragged you into this mess, Lythande—”
“It isn’t your fault,” Lythande said fairly. “I should have checked the barrier spell more carefully.”
“Then you are a virgin?” Eirthe asked. “I’m not, and I know that Alnath isn’t—assuming the volcano cares about the virginity of a salamander. Do you have to be one for your magic to work, or is it just that while you’re pretending to be a man it’s hard to find an opportunity to change that condition?”
Lythande looked grim. “And how do you know I’m not a man?”
Eirthe shrugged. “I don’t know how; I’ve just known ever since I first saw you that you were a woman. You didn’t seem to want it known, so I kept quiet about it.”
Lythande scowled. The fact that she was a woman was her greatest secret. Each Adept of the Blue Star had a Secret upon which all his power—and life—depended, and this was Lythande’s. Some women, unfortunately, could take one look at her and tell she was female, and apparently Eirthe was one of them. She had, however, managed not to tell anyone, including Lythande, for almost a decade, so she was at least discreet.
“Kindly continue to keep it quiet. In answer to your question, while virginity per se is not strictly necessary to my magic, the day any man finds out I’m a woman is the day I lose my power—so I remain a virgin.”
“Well, that answers that question,” Eirthe said. “Now for the next one: have you any ideas on how to get us out of here?”
“I gather,” Lythande said, slightly amused, “that you do not consider sacrificing me to the volcano to be a viable option?”
“Of course not!” Eirthe said indignantly. “I don’t kill—I got the curse in the first place when I refused to make candles for a wizard who wanted to use them to kill people, and I’m certainly not going to kill you to get the curse lifted. I’d rather be accursed than a murderess.”
Lythande regarded her from under raised eyebrows. “It’s a refreshing change to see someone who is willing to suffer for her principles. I’d like to see you free of the curse, but I really have no intention of diving into a volcano to do it.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose the proximity to the volcano has weakened the curse any?”
Eirthe walked over to the lava flow, scooped up a handful, and began to mold it into a statuette as it cooled in her hands. “It doesn’t look like it.”
Lythande looked intently at the figure taking shape and said suddenly, “Tell me exactly what it was the wizard who cursed you wanted you to do.”
Eirthe paused to collect her memories of the event into reasonable order. “Garak wanted me to make candles in the likenesses of all the rich merchants at the Fair—I was at an annual trade fair that spring; my father had died during the winter, and I was continuing with his business. But when Garak asked me, I remembered that Father had made a candle of one of the goldsmiths the previous year, which vanished after one of his drinking bouts with Garak, and then the goldsmith burned to death in his bed and they said the blankets weren’t even charred—and Garak had a lot more money after that...”
“The Law of Similarity,” Lythande murmured. “Was he running a protection racket?”
“That’s what I thought at the time,” Eirthe said, “but I couldn’t prove it. Anyway, I refused to have anything to do with him—and he wasn’t that good a magician, so I was pretty sure he couldn’t pull it off without me. Unfortunately, he had gotten caught up in the worship of one of the proscribed gods, which was where he got the power for the curse.”
Lythande sat quietly for several minutes, deep in thought. Eirthe continued to refine the statuette into the likeness of a young girl.
“So what you’re saying is that your candles held enough magic to be Similar to the people they were modeled after.”
“Yes, I guess so,” Eirthe said uncertainly. “I never really thought of it in those terms...” Her voice trailed off as she looked at the figure in her hands. “Lythande? Do you think the volcano would consider this to be a virgin?”
“Its substance certainly is,” Lythande said promptly. “You can’t get a substance much more virgin than lava newly poured from a volcano.” She reached over and took the figure from Eirthe, handling it gingerly by the edges. “And there’s quite a bit of life in it, both from its essence and from your work on it.” She handed the figure back to Eirthe and shrugged. “It’s worth a try, I suppose. Formulate your request into words, and do it carefully. While the volcano is probably not as difficult and malicious as the average demon, it’s always best to be very precise with your words.”
“Be careful what you pray for, because you might get it?” Eirthe said lightly.
“You will almost certainly get it,” Lythande corrected her.
Eirthe nodded. “I’ll be careful,” she promised. “At least this is one virgin that won’t give the volcano heartburn
!”
Together they went back to stand at the volcano’s edge, with Alnath still perched on Eirthe’s shoulder.
“Have you decided on your wish?” it asked.
“Yes,” Eirthe said, choosing her words carefully. “I am a candlemaker under a curse so that I can’t use fire and the candles I make will not burn. I want to be released from the curse, but not as if it had never been; I want the release to apply only from this moment forth and not to change the condition of any candles I have made in the past.”
“Very well,” the volcano said. “Give me the virgin and you shall have your will.”
Eirthe dropped the lava figure she had fashioned into the volcano, closed her eyes, held her breath. Lythande was holding her breath as well; close proximity to the volcano did not encourage deep breathing, but she kept both eyes—and her magical senses as well—open. The figure fell from Eirthe’s hands and disappeared into the lava, which promptly subsided to a calm lake. But Alnath was shrieking, and Eirthe’s knees were buckling under her.
Lythande grabbed Eirthe before she fell into the volcano, tossed her over one shoulder, and sprinted downhill. Then there was the sensation of pushing through the barrier again, and Alnath stopped screaming. The air was breathable again too.
Lythande laid Eirthe gently on the ground and dropped to kneel beside her. “What happened?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Eirthe said shakily. “The volcano didn’t erupt, did it?” She cast a nervous glance uphill.
“No, it didn’t,” Lythande assured her. “It took the sacrifice and the lava subsided, but Alnath started screaming and you suddenly collapsed. So I grabbed you and got out of there.”
Eirthe shuddered. “It felt as if I’d been thrown in there instead of the sacrifice.” She turned her head to look at Alnath. “Alnath, are you all right?”
Yes, came the salamander’s prompt reply, but it really did feel as though we were in the volcano!
Eirthe nodded. “Either there was too much of me in that figurine, or it was part of lifting the curse—I hope!” She struggled to sit up. “Where’s my belt pouch? Oh, here it is.” She pulled out a flint and steel with shaking hands and struck them together. Sparks flew, landing on the edge of her cloak, and she hastily beat at them, then pulled her hand back with a cry. “Ouch!” She looked at the slight burn on her hand. “Well, it appears the curse is lifted—now I’ll have to get used the handling fire again.”
Lythande smiled. “Be careful what you pray for—”
Together they finished the sentence, “—for you will certainly get it.”
Chalice of Tears
or,
I Didn’t Want That Damned Grail Anyway
A long time ago, Lythande had had a sharp lesson in the fact that the first law in Magic is to mind your own business, in a world where the penalty for entangling yourself in someone else’s magic can be severe. But that didn’t occur to her when she saw the old man lying in the road. He looked as if he were choking to death; and with her Healer’s instincts, which could always override common sense, she could not have kept herself from kneeling at his side and asking what ailed him.
“Nothing,” the old man murmured weakly. “My day is done. I have lived too many years.” And indeed it seemed that he might well be the age of Lythande’s grandsire—and yet Lythande had lived the span of four or five ordinary lifetimes.
“You should not say so,” rebuked Lythande, whose training led her always to deny death in her patient’s thoughts. But secretly she thought he might very well be right. Never had she seen any man—not even the immortal magicians of her own Order—quite so bent and stooped with age.
Lythande lifted his head gently. “The first thing is to get you out of the very middle of the road; night has begun to fall, and there will be rain before morning.”
“No.” The old man struggled away from her hands when Lythande would have raised him up. “I must make disposition of what I bear; I am sworn.” He fumbled among his ancient and tattered robes, grey more with age than with dirt.
What he brought out was a thing of beauty. At first it seemed to be a chalice of silver; but as Lythande looked more carefully, she could see that it was fashioned of birchwood, pale grey, and beautifully turned, and set into a silver frame. The wood was so pale and smooth that the whole thing looked as if it were fashioned of silver.
Lythande drew back. “I beg you, grandfather, do not bestow it upon me.”
“I cannot, and I would not if I could,” replied the old man, testily. “The Grail chooses its own Guardian. It is for you to seek out that Guardian, under the geas I now lay upon you.”
Lythande jerked back in alarm; but before she could set the spell which would render the air around her void of magic, there was a brief flash like lightning.
“Behold the Chalice of Tears,” whispered the old man. Under his ancient, grey gaze, the Grail seemed to shimmer with a strange luminescence, a sort of underwater radiance. Lythande did not want to behold, much less touch, the magical object; but almost of their own volition—or was it the spell laid upon the chalice?—her fingers closed about it. Resigned, she looked down again at the old man to ask him where she should seek the ordained Guardian of this Grail; but his face had gone slack and he had ceased to breathe.
Lythande sighed and drew the tattered grey robes over the old Guardian’s dead face. She would have spoken a spell to rid herself of the outworn shell of his body, but the spell died unspoken. The chalice seemed to cast a faint shimmer in the air about her, and Lythande guessed that it was the sort of magical artifact that could endure the presence of no magic but its own. As she knelt in the road holding the chalice, the worn form of the Guardian began to vibrate, then to fade. Soon nothing remained but a little greyish dust stirred by invisible winds; and then it vanished.
“So,” Lythande said aloud, “At least the Guardian of the Grail has saved me the trouble of burying him. Now what must I do? Guide me, I pray, ancient father.”
Shorn for the moment of her magic, Lythande felt as helpless and vulnerable as a declawed cat. Goblet in hand, she withdrew to a hollow in the trees, aware that she must rely on her skill in divination to determine what she should do next.
She rummaged in her pack for the worn cards she kept there, took them out of their frayed silk shielding, and spread them before her. She had no especial faith in the cards, but with none of her own spells at her command, their wisdom was all she had to guide her. Her own magic would not serve to give her some hint of where she should seek this guardian.
She looked carefully at the cards spread before her, fascinated as always by their mysterious designs. These cards had been a gift from an ancient wisewoman, who had said that any given reading would be relevant only to Lythande’s own immediate situation. As she might have suspected, the first card was the Ace of cups; immediately at its right lay the shrouded and enthroned form of the Priestess.
“Bother,” thought Lythande. “That is the selfsame chalice which has been bestowed upon me, which tells me nothing.” Again she cast the cards, and again the Grail—the Ace of Cups, not even a significator. This time she shuffled the cards for a long time before she set them out; and once again she beheld the Grail. One of the laws by which such as Lythande lived was ‘Seek for that which repeats.’ So she knew that somehow the cards had laid themselves out to guide her—if not by their own magic, then perchance that of the Grail itself.
Next to the Grail she beheld the form of the Hermit, seeking forever a light which burned like a star within his own lantern.
That is the Guardian of the Grail,” said Lythande aloud. “Tell me something I don’t know, oh cards, I entreat you.”
Again she cast the cards; but this time she made very sure to thrust the ace of cups well within the pack. But, when she turned the first card, behold! There again was the ace of cups, and next to it, again the High Priestess. Lythande could not help smiling to herself.
“So,” Lythande thought. “The Gu
ardian of the Grail is a woman? Tell me now, oh cards, where dwells this sorceress, since the old man made it clear that this quest is not for me.” Nor did she want it, though she felt a little miffed that she should be thought unfit. But then, perhaps the sorceress card kept coming up because the chalice was in fact in the hands of a woman, though Lythande might never be known by any man to be a woman—the destiny placed upon her by the master of the Order of Adepts of the Blue Star.
Lythande continued to cast the cards; but cast as she would, nothing came up but disasters—flood, fire and earthquake. And at last she thrust the cards back within their silk wrappings, thinking that if all these disasters were meant for the possessor of the Grail, she must make haste to get the thing into the hands of its ordained Guardian. But like the old man, the cards had given her no clue about where to begin looking.
Lythande wrapped herself in her grey mage-robe, placed the Grail carefully within her sack, and laid herself down to sleep. Perhaps she could find a clue in her dreams...
~o0o~
Her sleep was restless, and when she woke, a thin fine rain was drizzling down from a grey, occluded sky.
“So,” Lythande said to herself, “the Chalice of Tears begins to make its influence felt; even the sky weeps. Guide me, I pray, Master.”
When she had eaten a little of the bread and fruit she kept within her pack, she settled down to wait. Since the Grail had assumed mastery of her steps, she would await its guidance. If the Grail would choose its own Guardian, then it must give direction to her steps.
As she waited, letting her thoughts wander, she heard from afar the sound of a choric hymn. The singing grew gradually louder, and soon a group of pilgrims emerged from the trees, singing as they walked. At their head was a woman, tall and strong, swathed in a grey veil somewhat like Lythande’s own mage-robe.
“I greet you, master musician,” she called out cheerfully at sight of the lute strung over Lythande’s shoulder. “Whither away?”
Lythande drew herself to her feet. “I am a minstrel,” she said. “I have a quest which has been laid upon me.”
The Complete Lythande Page 22
