Magic in Ithkar

by Andre Norton

  He had wanted to stand as far away as possible from that platform, with its shameful post for securing prisoners, but Xuthen’s steward forced him closer. Vassilika, he thought, would forgive him for witnessing her punishment. That hurt him. She would endure what she had to. But tonight—most likely tonight would see her floating facedown in the river. And Xuthen/Thotharn could still claim the child. . . .

  “Watch,” hissed the steward. Xuthen had given Andriu to him to be schooled as one might school a wild beast. But the steward had no need of whip or chain. Andriu could smell the breath of the mask. His knees grew weak, his chest began to ache, and the high whine of fever started up in his ears. His health was a gift that could be withdrawn.

  Stubbornly Andriu jerked up his chin. He wanted his memories of Vassilika untainted by today’s shame.

  “I told you to watch,” the steward repeated. Andriu choked. He was going to have to cough, to breathe in the mask’s breath. ... He watched, hating himself.

  Father Demetrios and Lord Xuthen walked toward the platform. “For the last time”—the priest’s voice was urgent but, being a dream-singer’s voice, carried to the farthest reaches of the square—“in the name of the Comforter herself, let me implore you—”

  “I stand for the old law of your own temple!”

  “Temple law this may be,” retorted the old dream-singer. “But it is not justice and will have its price.”

  The sergeant of fair-wards brought Vassilika out onto the platform. She wore only a shift. When he took her by the arm to guide her to the post and its dangling manacles, she met his eyes, and his fell. She shook her heavy braids down over her shoulders to give herself some covering when they ripped her shift from her shoulders. Then she placed her hands within the metal rings before she was compelled to. When the sergeant offered her a strip of leather to bite on, she turned her head away.

  The crowd sighed in horror. Andriu saw Vassilika’s kinswomen sobbing. The man beside them twisted his hand on his knifeless belt.

  Andriu winced as he heard the sharp rip of Vassilika’s shift tearing. He couldn’t just stand here, could he? Not when he had nothing—not even his soul—left to lose. What if he stepped forward and declared himself the father of her child? ... He would be arrested . . . and he would get free of Xuthen, perhaps long enough to die clean. As if sensing his intent, the steward reached over to silence him with a hand on his shoulder. Again Andriu smelled the breath of Thotharn and his head spun. He was reeling, staggering over the smooth flags of the square, away from the steward, he had opened his mouth to protest . . .

  As Vassilika caught sight of him, a tear slid down her cheek. Ever so slightly she shook her head at him: This is pointless, she was telling him.

  But it wasn’t. For fifteen years he had sung, had nursed his disillusionment and bitterness. Then he had met her. And she had manifested (without dream-songs) what he had long forgotten—the core of him, that still believed in innocence and justice.

  He opened his mouth to shout but found himself singing instead.

  At first his voice quivered. Then he collected and stitched together the rags of the fine voice he had once had and made his dream-song. He sang of Vassilika’s manacles turning to bracelets. Suddenly her wrists were laden with gold.

  He never knew for certain what scraps of poetry he lifted from the old ballads to wrap about Vassilika as he longed to set his cloak over her bared shoulders. But as he sang, for the first time during that long, shameful morning, Vassilika blushed. She raised her hands to cover her full breasts, and the gold from the transformed chains rang on her wrists. There was strength and shelter in those arms, Andriu thought. But it was not fitting for Vassilika to stand revealed before the crowd. He recalled words from one of the oldest of the priestly hymns. “Strength and dignity are her clothing,” he sang. Father Demetrios held out an arm to restrain Xuthen. His eyes were very bright with recognition, and with joy. Andriu wondered why he ever thought he needed to hide from him—or that he could. It was all so much simpler now.

  The people in the court looked at Vassilika not because they wanted to see her humbled, but because she glowed like a festival gown with the radiance with which Andriu’s song had invested her. That was but her outer shell. Could he show them the Vassilika he knew? He had to.

  As he continued to sing, he became aware of that other life within her, part Vassilika and part something utterly alien and hostile to her. It was the demon seed she had been tricked into bearing. It could not be tolerated. Yet the child was also half hers, might have her spirit, her generosity . . . He could not extinguish its potential. Andriu’s voice soared effortlessly into the difficult high notes. Even as he marveled at its range and power, he knew that it flooded into that growing life and shaped it anew. It was as much his now as hers, even though they had never lain together in love. He could claim it now and not be lying.

  Xuthen snarled and stripped off his cloak. He wrapped its heavy folds about his hand and grasped the iron intended to brand Vassilika in disgrace. When he drew it from the brazier, its tip flowered, red and baneful.

  Andriu tried to leap forward and got to the steps of the platform. Then he felt the chill breath of the mask stealing over him, draining the strength from his voice. His power to sing life into manifestation was fading with his own life . . . too soon.

  Vassilika’s hands came up to her mouth and she began to sing. It seemed as if her cupped hands caught her voice, caressed it, and cast it forth, stronger for their touch.

  She was not a dream-singer. Rich and pleasant her voice might be, but it was simply that of a woman who might be expected to sing over her weaving or to please friends. Andriu thought he could have listened to it forever. It made him think of harvests, of woven baskets heaped high with fruits, wines ruddy and gold, fires that welcomed travelers at sunset, when the air turned frosty and there was a hint of smoke in it, and the flashes of green and copper at the horizon subsided.

  It strengthened him. He staggered onto the platform and opened his mouth again. Just let him claim the child as his and this ordeal would be over. Then there would be an investigation, and they would have Xuthen . . . wouldn’t they? His eyes met Vassilika’s, hope and questions in them.

  She tossed her braids back from her shoulders and stepped forward, her flesh shimmering. When Andriu’s knees gave out, she eased him down and knelt beside him. Cradling his face with its cracked, bloody lips against her breasts, she touched her mouth to his forehead briefly and went on with her song. Her voice took on an added luster.

  It was not dream-singing, but something equally as powerful. It lifted him, bathed and healed him, then moved out beyond him to embrace everything in the temple. “Blossom,” it commanded. “Flourish, grow for me!”

  Awe on his face, Father Demetrios hastened to the doors of the temple and went within. Andriu heard him cry out in wonder, then run deeper toward the sanctuary itself. Then the old priest stepped out into the light. Clasped in his arms was the wreath of Xuthen’s blasphemous presentation to the Comforter. As the old priest moved, the green stalks quivered. The golden heads of grain drooped with their own weight and shifted as the breeze from the water touched them. Sun shone off the dew glistening upon them. Vassilika held out her arms to receive the wreath from the dream-singer as lovingly as if it were her own child. I helped, Andriu thought in wonder. I really did. My faith helped change this.

  Xuthen screamed. “Will no one punish this shameless bitch?”

  The iron he clutched in his hand had burned through his cloak and charred flesh so that his entire arm began to smoke. But the demon in him transferred the agony away from his consciousness to whatever might be left of Xuthen-the-man and lunged at Vassilika. As the iron touched her shoulder, Andriu heard her flesh sizzle.

  Then Vassilika laughed. Where the iron had touched flesh, the only mark made was a stalk of grain which faded, even as a blush fades.

  “Red hot!” screamed Xuthen. “Witch!”

  “That�
��s a lie!” Andriu shouted, just as Vassilika’s father leapt onto the platform.

  “False charges,” cried the man. “I call challenge on you, my lord. Sergeant, arrest him!”

  Father Demetrios came forward with the guards. His first words ignored Xuthen and went straight for Andriu’s heart. “My son! I wept when you ran away, and I tried to find you. Now . . .” He looked as if he might weep again. “Where had you disappeared to? It doesn’t matter, now. Thank the Three you are home again.”

  Andriu kissed the priest’s hand. He had a sudden, incongruous picture of Vassilika wearing a black robe and an air of enforced sanctity, or of himself attempting once more to school his fondness for rude ballads into the teaching of choirboys. Vassilika, he knew, had no talent for contemplation; her gifts were all for life. He hadn’t been much of a contemplative, either. When that failed, he had run wild. He would try living instead of rebelling now.

  But there were matters to tend now, and Vassilika seemed to have them in hand. She stepped forward and handed Andriu the wreath. Holding the stalk of grain that she had drawn from it, she advanced upon Xuthen and brushed it across his face. He screamed as if it had seared him . . . and it had. Andriu had no other words for it. Xuthen was withering from that touch, shriveling in upon himself until his body crumbled into ash. A guard went to the fountain, drew water in his helmet, and washed the place where the demon enfleshed had fallen.

  “Are you ready to come home, daughter?” asked Vassilika’s father.

  Andriu swept his arm and cloak over her shoulders. She grinned at him in a deplorably unladylike fashion, and that grin answered all his questions. She would be going home at least long enough to collect her clothing. It occurred to Andriu that she must also have a dowry; the thought dazed him. And then they would both go to the temple, at least long enough for Father Demetrios to wed them before the transformed wreath.

  And then what?

  Andriu sighed in pure contentment. He had his health back, he had been forgiven, welcomed by Father Demetrios, and he had Vassilika. Despite a life filled with songs and with dreaming, he had never dreamt of a Vassilika. And to think he had returned to Ithkar expecting to die and wanting only to do it in his birthplace! What a ballad this would make! He could sing it up and down the Ith. . . . Oh, but would Vassilika want to sing it with him? A bard’s life wasn’t for everyone.

  She smiled at him, and he remembered how she had complained of boredom. She would love traveling, and she would never be bored again. He’d see to that! And he ... he’d never be lonely. There would never be enough he could do for her because she had taken away his loneliness.

  He couldn’t have sung himself a better future!

  Andriu smiled and kissed his bride-to-be.

  The Prince Out of the Past

  Nancy Springer

  Kam Horseleech awoke with a start, not knowing for a moment where he was. That always happened to him at Ithkar Fair, starry sky overhead instead of the familiar thatch, no warm form of wife. Usually the drunken cries of ill-assorted fairgoers served to alert him, but there was no noise, it must have been that most hushed time of night a few hours before dawn. What had roused him?

  Still groggy, he sat up and glanced around. Moonbeams, shadow and soft light, tents and wagons. Smells and sounds— quiet stirrings of all sorts of animals, someone’s nag stamping, lop-eared rabbits rustling in their cage and a cheetah in one farther away—nothing untoward. Kam yawned, his mind moving hazily. Sleep after a trying day, that nomad’s mare foaling breech and the cut on that supercilious noble’s prize ambler, the man peering over his shoulder as he worked. No matter. Go back to sleep.

  Yet he had felt a summons, firm as the grip of a hand on his upper arm. But no one stood near.

  Well, it would do no harm just to have a look about. . . .

  Kam got up, stumbling slightly over his own sizable feet. Automatically he ran a hand over his shock of hair and through his rough beard, picking out bits of straw. A big hand, not at all clever by the looks of it, but good with horses. ... He stumped off at random, trying to be wary. It went against his nature to be suspicious, but this was the most disreputable sector of the fair, as he had been warned many times by both friends and experience. All those who stank, whether animal or human, were pushed outward from die sweet-smelling temple center of the fair to lodge here at the fringes. So if he did not want to be knocked on the head by bravos or to step on a snake-charmer, he had to be careful. What lay in shadow of tents and trees . . . and that moon-glade, now, just ahead. It would not do to step out in it without having a bit of a look around. . . .

  He stepped out in it nevertheless, for he was one who liked the light, and a most unaccountable feeling took hold of him.

  Now what was that grip, gentle, invisible hands of— moonlight?—on his bony wrists, tugging at him, on his shoulders that were round and stooped from toil, guiding him? Not even crying out—but with bushy eyebrows arched high in astonishment—Kam found himself threading his way quite surely through a haphazard maze of sleeping bodies, past the offal of distant food booths to a region that smelled strongly of manure—

  Until he came to a stop, and all the stench and squalor around him seemed distant and unreal, for he saw only those who stood in the moonlight before him.

  Being what he was, he noticed the horse first. It stood very still, white flanks mottled gray by leaf-shadow in moonlight, shimmering, almost spiritous, but so big, a destrier without peer, massive neck highly arched and the small ears almost hidden in mane, noble nostrils, dark eyes, ripple of muscles in great shoulder—and standing with one hand resting lightly on the great shining curve of barrel, the master—

  Kam turned his eyes slightly to see who it was who owned such a steed. Another mincing noble, he judged it would be. But no—this man looked to be neither perfumed noble nor worldly priest nor commoner nor nomad nor soldier nor merchant nor any other sort of man that Kam could put a name to, nor even one of those nameless overseas barbarians. He was—what was he, in the moonlight? He met Kam’s stare quite equably.

  “Goodman horseleech,” he said, “thank you for coming.”

  Young, he was very young, and handsome—and yet the curls of his fair young head shone pure white. And something in his voice was not young at all—there were ages of quiet in that level voice. A glint of sheen about him—crown, or helm, or sparkle of armband, or brooch at the cloaked shoulder? Kam was never to remember clearly, for he was caught in a trance of strangeness and shifting moonlight. And that face dimly lit and the eyes deep pools of shadow—he was perhaps not of unusual height, perhaps of a height with Kam if Kam had straightened fully, but he seemed tall, even when he bent to run his hand down his horse’s sleek side.

  “It is the hock, here,” he said.

  Kam noted the swelling, moved closer numbly to explore it with large, deft, and gentle fingers, noting in the same trancelike fashion that the steed bore not a thread of harness. “Spavin,” Kam said, his voice coming out curiously rusty.

  “I know. That last battle, too much, the terrible weight—he had been lame for a long time, and has worn the hoof all uneven with it. What can you do for him, goodman Kam?’”

  He hated to answer truly. He swallowed first. “Very little,” he said finally. “If I could have treated it sooner, just after it happened—”

  “I know. I lay abed, a spear-tip buried in my thigh, and by the time I— Well . ...” The stranger paused, glancing, if Kam could judge, obliquely upward, toward where the moon hovered, gathering thoughts. “The talk of Ithkar Fair is that you are the best healer of horses south of the mountains,” he went on at last. “Surely there is something you can do.”

  There were remedies. Kam had tried them at various times, reluctantly. “Some men burn the spavin with white-hot iron to draw the devil out,” he said, his voice as quiet and even as that of the one he faced. “Others pierce it with tapestry needles or slender knives.”

  “And you say?”

  Kam trie
d not to scowl. “I say let ill enough alone. Pain and disfigurement—”

  “And small enough result. Yes.” The stranger turned slightly, his hand still on the great steed’s back. “Have you no magic, goodman Kam?”

  A chill that was not the night breeze touched Kam—fear, but not of the stranger. It was the well-inbred fear of one well mannered who has always obeyed the law. “You know the priests guard magic quite jealously,” he said too hastily, too anxious to tell the other that which should not need saying.

  “Magic is forbidden in Ithkar except when judged harmless or a minor part of a man’s stock in trade.”

  “Well, then say that I forced you to do my will.” There was not the slightest hint of threat in the youth’s voice—only eagerness. “With this,” he added, and from a scabbard under his cloak he drew forth a long, slender sword that shone like new silver in the moonlight.

  A sword!

  Kam gaped, knowing now quite certainly what he had managed not to know before: that this man, this horse, were not of earthly sort. The fair-wards let no weapons into Ithkar Fair, whether lance or dirk, whether on noble, cleric, or commoner. None. Years had taught him that the rule was as dependable as the sunrise. And here stood one with a shining sword in hand—he could not, then, be one who had entered this place by any earthly gate.

  “Who are you?” Kam whispered.

  The other seemed suddenly abashed and sheathed his sword. “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “To be sure, it does!” Kam exclaimed, though he could not have told why. “Who—what are you?”

  “The prince out of the past.”

  Names of dead heroes, champions of the Three Lordly Ones in the noble times long past, filled Kam’s mind in disorder, like half-remembered music. “Who—which one?”

  “All.”

  Kam stared, beyond his depth, uncertain whether to kneel, pledge fealty, kiss the moonlike glint of a ring. But he was a plain man, he could do none of those things. Only one thing could he do for this prince, and silently he turned to the horse to attempt it.