by Paula Guran
“So, we leave you now to your holy task!” declaimed Remnon portentously. “Once we have gone, the doors will open and you will behold Cleito! You will see the sea demon that holds her in its clutches; this is the fiend you must defeat! There are many of you, and thus you are likely to win the day! We have shall go and, ah, count out the gold and pearls, to be divided among you—and now—”
“Hold!” Brimm cried out. His doubts were gathering force—he had noticed Fress’s curious smile, quickly hidden under his be-ringed hand, at the mention of counting out gold and pearls. “No need for such haste!” insisted Brimm. “Indeed, Fress there looks doughty enough and wears a fine sword! Why should he not join us and partake of the treasure? Surely we are to have casualties. There will be enough gold for those who remain!”
“Ah, no,” Fress said, blinking at Brimm in alarm. “My sword is purely ornamental. It’s for ritualistic purposes only. Mere costumery! Not even sharp!”
“I shall loan you my dagger!”
“No, no, I thank you! You see, the door of the throne room opens of its own accord. It will open quite soon—and sadly, Father and I are not permitted to remain!”
Remnon cleared his throat. “And now, we must bid you goodbye! May the good fortune of the gods attend you all!”
“Stop!” Brimm called, his voice harsh with warning. “You shall not depart! If we face this, so shall you. We have need of your knowledge.”
Remnon took his son’s upper arm and tugged him back from the door. The two retainers backed away. “That is not possible. But—again—best of luck to you all!”
“Stop them!” Brimm shouted.
Snoori nodded. “I too mistrust them.”
The Ten exchanged frowns and turned dark looks at the Atlanteans. Suddenly the black warrior from the South made several quick bounds and took up a stance behind the retainers, his spear jabbing. Remnon and Fress came to a sudden confused halt. Brimm drew his sword and joined the black warrior—and together they herded their protesting guides to the metal doors. Which at that moment creaked wide open.
Forcing the protesting Atlanteans along, the Ten stepped forward, for, despite their doubts, none of them were cowards and all still hoped treasure might be found.
They were in a smaller room now—it was high ceilinged but a third the size of the Hall of Supplicants. Brimm saw no throne. Nor were there torches; a flaring, dipping blue light emanated from vents near the floor. There were no furnishings, no columns; nothing except the ripe stench, and a few dimly perceived mosaics on the walls. The mosaics showed nereids and mermen frolicking in the waves beneath unfamiliar astrological configurations. The floor—at least, nearer the doors—looked to be of some brown and gray material. Then Brimm realized it was the dried residue of old blood on white marble.
The high metal doors closed behind them and, whirling as a group to look, each man saw there were no handles, no knobs, no visible means of opening them. They murmured and cursed, each in his native language.
“Father, what has happened?” Fress wailed, clutching his groin as if to prevent his bladder giving way. “This is not seemly—this is not possible! The door opens not from this side!”
“Silence,” the old man muttered. “Let me think. Somewhere there must be a way . . . ”
The floor began to quake—and a metallic grinding noise brought everyone around to stare at the far end of the rectangular chamber. There, the dirty marble was separating, gradually parting, halves shunting aside into the walls. The stench of oceanic decay was palpable now.
The Ten stared in dull amazement as a shimmering pool of indigo was gradually revealed, its shuddering surface giving off more of the sickly blue light. From the center of the pool, gratingly lifted by some ancient, rusting mechanical device, rose a throne, on which was seated a strange but beautiful woman. Her throne, almost too big for her, was of gold-streaked marble arrayed roundabout with broken coral branches, streaming water as it rose. On her head was a crown of coral tipped with emeralds, dripping with sparkling water. She herself was the color of green olives, her full lips crimson; the whites of her large pupilless oval eyes were speckled with gold like polished opal; her slick green-black hair draped wetly over her bare shoulders; her small hands, nails crusted with ruby dust, rested placidly on the arms of the throne. She wore an iridescent gown that clung to her firm breasts and slim waist, the gown greatly expanding, fanning out widely below to hide her hips, her legs, the entire lower part of the throne.
“Behold!” Fress said, his voice a squeak of awe, shaking hands clutched before his face. “Princess Cleito! The sacred consort of Poseidon!”
“And . . . you may as well know,” said Remnon grimly. “That is Cleito herself—not her descendant. She was mortal, and there was only one way she could live on, without the blessing of Poseidon. For when she strayed from him, he cursed her . . . and now you—” he pointed his long-nailed finger at Brimm “—have cursed us all! At least my son and I would have lived—but now—!”
Remnon turned a shaking hand toward the ancient princess on the throne before them—and fell to his knees. “Cleito!” cried the king’s retainer. “Take these others, but spare my son and your faithful servant Remnon! We have brought you many a succulent hero—as did my father and his father before him! Spare us in their memory!”
Her mouth snapped open, as if in a convulsion, exposing a toothless purple orifice writhing with slick, fluttering tendrils, and she emitted a prolonged, ear-splitting screech commingled of hate, horror, and hunger. This was her only reply to Remnon.
Then her gown, which Brimm now saw to be made of living skin, parted like a curtain and her true lower half was revealed. In the place of legs were ten mottled gray limbs, now stretching toward them: eight wriggling tentacles bore circular suckers and two longer limbs, equally prehensile, and tipped with dexterous club-shaped appendages.
Perhaps the creature had once been a woman, but it was no longer. What vestiges remained served merely as mocking disguise. This “princess” was wholly monster.
The men backed away—but the tentacles stretched out, longer and thicker than Brimm would have thought possible. Cleito’s cephalopodean lower half was disproportionately bigger, far larger than its upper half, and yet perfectly melded with its torso. The slippery-wet squid-like part of it now tilted back, raising up to expose a gigantic beak where the tentacles converged, snapping hungrily at the warriors.
Men screamed in horror; Fress bolted to the doors and pounded on them, squalling in fear. Remnon threw himself face down, babbling prayers.
Suddenly, fast as a striking cobra, Cleito’s tentacles whipped round the northern barbarians, lifted them screaming into the air, and drew them near. The monster thrust first one, then the other into the opened beak, which elongated as needed for its feasting. Weapons raised, the warriors reacted with moans and cries of fury.
In seconds, Cleito had sucked the flesh from the northmen—and then the beak opened, spewed out their bones, their armor and leather, the greater part sinking away in the pool. A few bits flew past the edge of the pool so that a fresh skull rolled to thump onto Snoori’s boots; with an unmanly yelp he kicked it away into the pool about the throne.
More tentacles surged out, and Brimm dodged this way and that, avoiding flashing tentacles, ducking, striking with his piercer like a stinging wasp as the limbs whipped past. He struck home and black blood oozed, but the limbs did not slow their grasping. He tried frantically to remember a spell he might use against this abomination, but the castings he knew needed concentration and time—he was given no time for anything but dodging and slashing.
Crying out in many languages the warriors backed away from Cleito, waving their blades—but its sucker-lined lower limbs, as much supernatural as fleshly, plucked them one by one; in seconds the mortal flesh was stripped from their bones, spitting out weapons like a man spitting out gristle from his dinner. As the beak drew men in and crushed them, the false princess’s scarlet mouth worked in symp
athy, as if it were chewing.
The black warrior shouted in defiance and threw his spear hard at the upper parts of creature on the throne—but fast as a darting barracuda, a tentacle bolted out and caught the weapon, reversed it, and sped it neatly back so that it impaled the warrior’s neck, splitting his throat. Then as he stood swaying, clutching the spear haft, the other tentacle lashed round his ankles and dragged him, thrashing and gurgling, feet first to its giant beak.
The warriors hacked furiously at the tentacles—one big man with a battleaxe cut partway through a suckered limb and Snoori chopped at the wound with the head of his javelin. The limb fell apart, but another grew quickly in its place.
Faster and faster the limbs flashed, the beak gulped—and soon seven shrieking men were gone. The spear of the black warrior was there, lying on the edge of the pool . . .
A tentacle whipped at Brimm—and with it another, so that they were coming from both sides. Brimm ducked, slashing. “Snoori—help me feed it this old fool!” He bent, dragged the weeping, slobbering old Remnon to his feet; with Snoori’s help Brimm heaved Remnon toward the tentacles. The offering was accepted—Remnon was caught up and tucked into the beak.
But the other tentacles reached for new prey. Heart pounding, Brimm used his flexible, razor-sharp piercer to good effect, just managing to deter the undulating limbs.
Only a few of the Ten remained. The warrior of Ur, though darting and spinning adroitly, was next to be caught . . .
“We’re the next morsel unless we can find a way out!” Snoori yelled, slashing at tentacles to keep them back.
A club-tentacle shot out wrapping tightly around Snoori’s legs and drawing him screaming across the floor toward the great snapping beak.
“Drag your javelin in the floor, Snoori, to slow it down!” Brimm called.
Snoori did as Brimm bid, and the javelin point caught hold a crack in the floor as Brimm ran to the doors. The monster was still chewing the man from Ur, whose armor slowed mastication. The giant squid-beak spat the armor out in several uneven chunks.
Brimm picked Fress up in his arms, ran with the struggling Atlantean to the beak, spun himself to increase his throw . . .
And he cast Fress at the beak.
Fress was caught in the air by a great appendage—and was quickly crammed, howling, into the creature’s maw. Snoori was in mid-air himself now, half strangled by another tentacle, throwing the javelin at the creature’s bosom. It missed, clacking off the throne.
Brimm caught up the black warrior’s spear—and then the tentacle dropped Snoori, as if suddenly disinterested.
Cleito had fed to repletion, Brimm realized. It needed ten men to feed upon, and ten it had consumed.
Laughing hysterically, Snoori thrashed in the pool and Brimm reached out, helped him onto the rim.
The cephalopodic half of Cleito was covering itself now, receding under the gown of skin. The throne was beginning to rumble, to lower once more into the pool. The dreadful “princess” belched hugely, and tittered. Brimm thought to see a febrile misery burning in its eyes.
“No,” Brimm snarled.
He aimed the black warrior’s spear, and threw it with all his might. Cleito was no longer protected by its tentacles, and the spear flew straight and true to drive itself between the opalescent eyes. It squealed and twisted, spurting black blood; ink gushed from its undersides.
Still the throne drew down, and she vanished with it, in a swirl of black effluvia.
The floor closed—and behind them, the metal doors creaked slowly open. Brimm and Snoori turned away—then Snoori bent down, plucking up a purse that had been spat from the creature’s beak. Brimm recalled seeing the purse on Remnon’s sash.
They hurried out of the throne room, and were soon gasping in the sweet open air outside the ruined palace.
It was quiet out here. Somewhere, a bird called, the sea surged, and galleys, below them, slid unhurriedly along glassy canals.
“So much for your princess,” Brimm said, his voice hoarse. “An effective deception to trick foolish men who persist in thinking of women as prizes to be won. As for the treasure—riches are always a ploy that always appeals. Neither ever existed at all.”
“Don’t be so sure about the riches!” Snoori opened the purse. “Ha! Four pearls and a double handful of gold. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Didn’t you . . . ” Brimm stared at him. “I could still strangle you—with my bare hands.”
“Suppose we find an inn, and I buy dinner, would that put you in a better mood?”
“We will split that purse—I’ll pay for my own dinner. Come—I see smoke from a far hamlet. Let us find some other realm than Poseidonia . . . And see something better of Atlantis.”
“Yes—why not! We can find work here! Make Atlantis our new home!”
“Perhaps. But . . . Did you feel the ground rumbling, just now?”
“Oh that—it happens all the time here. Nothing to worry about. This is Atlantis! What could go wrong?”
And so they set off along the crumbling old cliffside track, until they found a trail that would lead them down into the heart of Atlantis.
Tempering & Sharpening
“Bluestocking” (also published as “The Adventuress,” 1967) is the first, chronologically, of Joanna Russ’s (1937–2011) five stories to feature the sword-and-sorcery heroine, Alyx. This, and the next of her adventures, “I Thought She Was Afeard Till She Stroked My Beard,” is very much in the vein of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. (In fact, Alyx mentions one of Leiber’s characters in “Bluestocking.” Leiber, in turn, refers to Alyx in two of his tales.) In the final three Alyx stories, the heroine is an agent of the Trans-Temporal Authority in a more science fictional universe.
Working with less than 8,500 words, Russ gives us a remarkably complete protagonist and setting. Even Edarra, the young heiress Alyx aids, develops (somewhat) from a whiny spoiled child into a more self-possessed young woman. If you have never met the smart, competent, skilled, adventurous Alyx before, she may quickly become one of your favorite characters—man or woman—in sword and sorcery.
Bluestocking
Joanna Russ
This is the tale of a voyage that is of interest only as it concerns the doings of one small, gray-eyed woman. Small women exist in plenty—so do those with gray eyes—but this woman was among the wisest of a sex that is surpassingly wise. There is no surprise in that (or should not be) for it is common knowledge that Woman was created fully a quarter of an hour before Man, and has kept that advantage to this very day. Indeed, legend has it that the first man, Leh, was fashioned from the sixth finger of the left hand of the first woman, Loh, and that is why women have only five fingers on the left hand. The lady with whom we concern ourselves in this story had all her six fingers, and what is more, they all worked.
In the seventh year before the time of which we speak, this woman, a neat, level-browed, governessy person called Alyx, had come to the City of Ourdh as part of a religious delegation from the hills intended to convert the dissolute citizens to the ways of virtue and the one true God, a Bang tree of awful majesty. But Alyx, a young woman of an intellectual bent, had not been in Ourdh two months when she decided that the religion of Yp (as the hill god was called) was a disastrous piece of nonsense, and that deceiving a young woman in matters of such importance was a piece of thoughtlessness for which it would take some weeks of hard, concentrated thought to think up a proper reprisal. In due time the police chased Alyx’s co-religionists down the Street of Heaven and Hell and out the swamp gate to be bitten by the mosquitoes that lie in wait among the reeds, and Alyx—with a shrug of contempt—took up a modest living as pick-lock, a profession that gratified her sense of subtlety. It provided her with a living, a craft and a society. Much of the wealth of this richest and vilest cities stuck to her fingers but most of it dropped off again, for she was not much awed by the things of this world. Going their legal or illegal ways in this seventh year after her ar
rival, citizens of Ourdh saw only a woman with short, black hair and a sprinkling of freckles across her milky nose; but Alyx had ambitions of becoming a Destiny. She was thirty (a dangerous time for men and women alike) when this story begins. Yp moved in his mysterious ways, Alyx entered the employ of the lady Edarra, and Ourdh saw neither of them again—for a while.
Alyx was walking with a friend down the Street of Conspicuous Display one sultry summer’s morning when she perceived a young woman, dressed like a jeweler’s tray and surmounted with a great coil of red hair, waving to her from the table of a wayside garden-terrace.
“Wonderful are the ways of Yp,” she remarked, for although she no longer accorded that deity any respect, yet her habits of speech remained. “There sits a red-headed young woman of no more than seventeen years and with the best skin imaginable, and yet she powders her face.”
“Wonderful indeed,” said her friend. Then he raised one finger and went his way, a discretion much admired in Ourdh. The young lady, who had been drumming her fingers on the tabletop and frowning like a fury, waved again and stamped one foot.
“I want to talk to you,” she said sharply. “Can’t you hear me?”
“I have six ears,” said Alyx, the courteous reply in such a situation. She sat down and the waiter handed her the bill of fare.
“You are not listening to me,” said the lady.
“I do not listen with my eyes,” said Alyx.
“Those who do not listen with their eyes as well as their ears,” said the lady sharply, “can be made to regret it!”
“Those,” said Alyx, “who on a fine summer’s morning threaten their fellow-creatures in any way, absurdly or otherwise, both mar the serenity of the day and break the peace of Yp, who,” she said, “is mighty.”
“You are impossible!” cried the lady. “Impossible!” and she bounced up and down in her seat with rage, fixing her fierce brown eyes on Alyx. “Death!” she cried. “Death and bones!” and that was a ridiculous thing to say at eleven in the morning by the side of the most wealthy and luxurious street in Ourdh, for such a street is one of the pleasantest places in the world if you do not watch the beggars. The lady, insensible to all this bounty, jumped to her feet and glared at the little pick-lock; then, composing herself with an effort (she clenched both hands and gritted her teeth like a person in the worst throes of marsh fever), she said—calmly—
