Bradley, Marion Zimmer - SSC 03 Page 8

  Lythande had not survived this long under the Twin Suns without becoming oblivious to hysteria. The Adepts of the Blue Star held powerful magic; but every mage knew that sooner or later, everyone would encounter magic stronger yet. Now she felt rage rather than fear. Heartily, Lythande damned the momentary impulse of compassion for a dying woman that led her to reveal herself. Well, done was done. She had the larith sword and seemed likely—Lythande thought with a flicker of irony—to have it until she could devise a strong enough magic to get rid of it again.

  Was she fit for a really prolonged magical duel? It would attract attention; and somewhere within the walls of Old Gandrin—or so the herb-seller had told her— there was another Adept of the Blue Star. If she began making really powerful magic—and the unbinding-spell itself had been a risk—sooner or later she would attract the attention of whichever Pilgrim Adept had come here. With the kind of luck that seemed to be dogging her, it would be one of her worst enemies within the Order: Rabben the Half-handed, or Beccolo, or. ...

  Lythande grimaced. Bitter as it was to concede defeat, the safest course seemed to be to go north as the Larith sword wanted. If, then, when she arrived there, she could somehow contrive to return the sword to larith's own shrine. She had resolved to leave Old Gandrin anyway, and one direction was no better than another.

  So be it. She would take the damned thing north to the Forbidden Shrine, and there she would leave it. Somehow she would manage to plant it on someone who could enter the shrine where she could not enter . . . rather, the worst was that she could enter but dared not be known to do so. Northward, then, to Larith's shrine—

  But within the hour, though Lythande had been in Old Gandrin for a score of sunrises and should have known her way, the Adept was hopelessly lost. Whatever path Lythande found through marketplace or square, thieves' market or red-lamp quarter, however she tried to keep the sun on her right hand, within minutes she was hopelessly turned round. Four separate times she inquired for the north gate, and once it was actually within sight, when it seemed as if the cobbled street would shake itself and give itself a little twist, and Lythande would discover she was lost in the labyrinthine old streets again. Finally, exhausted, furiously hungry and thirsty, and without a chance of finding a moment to eat or drink in privacy now that the sun was high and the streets thronged, she dropped grimly on the edge of a fountain in a public square, maddened by the splashing of the water she dared not drink, and sat there to think it over.

  What did the damned thing want, anyway? She was bound north to the Forbidden Shrine as she thought she was commanded to go, yet she was prevented by the sword, or by the magic in the sword, from finding the northern gate, as she had been prevented from taking the road south. Was she to stay in Old Gandrin indefinitely? That did not seem reasonable, but then, there was nothing reasonable about this business.

  At least this will teach me to mind my own business in the future!

  Grimly, Lythande considered what alternatives were open. To try and find the burial place of the ravished Laritha and bury the sword with a binding-spell stronger yet? Even if she could find the place, she had no assurance that the sword would stay buried, and all kinds of assurances that it would not. The chances now seemed that all the power of the Blue Star would be expended in vain, unless Lythande wished to expend that kind of power that would in turn leave her powerless for days.

  To seek safety in the Place Which Is Not, outside the boundaries of the world, and there attempt to find out what the sword really wanted and why it would not allow her to leave the city? For that, the cover of darkness was needful; was she to spend this day aimlessly wandering the streets of Old Gandrin? The smell of food from a nearby cookshop tantalized her, but she was accustomed to that and resolutely ignored it. Later, in some deserted street or alley, some of the dried fruit in the pockets of the mage-robe might find their way into her mouth, but not now.

  At least she could enjoy a moment's rest here on the fountain. But even as that thought crossed her mind, she discovered she was on her feet and moving restlessly across the square, thrusting the little packet of smoking-herbs back into the pocket.

  She wondered angrily where in the hells she was going now. Her hand was lightly on the hilt of the larith sword, and she could only hope that none of the bystanders in the street could see it or would know what it meant if they did. She bashed into someone who snarled at her and accused her in a surly tone of some perversion involving being a rapist of immature nanny goats. The profanity of Old Gandrin, she concluded, was no more imaginative, and just as repetitive, as it was anywhere beneath the blinded eye of Keth-Ketha.

  Across the fountain square, then, and into a narrow, winding street that emerged, a good half hour's walk later, into another square, this one facing a long, narrow barracks. Lythande was in a curiously dreamy state that she recognized, later, as almost hypnotic; she watched herself from inside, walking purposefully across the square, quite as if she knew where she was going and why, feeling that at any time, if she wished, she could resist this eerie compulsion—but that was simply too much trouble; why not go along and see what the larith wanted?

  Four men were sloshing their faces in the great water trough before the barracks, their riding animals snorting in the water beside them. The Larith's sword was in her hand, and one man's head was bobbing like an apple in the water trough before Lythande knew what she—or rather, the sword—was doing. A second went down, spitted, before the other two had their swords out. The larith sword had lost its compulsion and was slack in her hand as she heard their outraged shouts, thinking ironically that she was as bewildered by the whole thing as they were, or maybe more so. She scrambled to get control of the sword, for now she was fighting for her life. There was no way these men were going to let her escape, now that she had slain two of their companions unprovoked. She managed to disarm one man, but the second drove her back and back, holding her ground as best she could; thrust, parry, recover, lunge—her foot slipped in something slick on the ground, and she went down, staggering for the support of the wall; somehow got the sword up and saw it go into the man's breast; he groaned and fell across the bodies of his companions, two dead and one sorely wounded.

  Lythande started to turn away, sickened and outraged—at least the fifth man need not be murdered in cold blood—then realized she had no choice. That survivor could testify to a magician with the Blue Star blazing between hairless brows, bearing the larith sword, and any Pilgrim Adept who might ever hear the story would know that Lythande had borne the larith unscathed. As only a woman could do. She whipped out the sword again. The man shouted, "Help! Murder! Don't kill me, I have no quarrel with you—" and took to his heels, but Lythande strode swiftly after him, like a relentless avenging angel, and ran him through, grimacing in sick self-disgust. Then she ran, seeing other men flooding out of the barracks at their comrades' death cries, losing herself in the tangle of streets again.

  Eventually, she had to stop to recover her breath. Why had the sword demanded those deaths? Immediately the answer came, imprinting the faces of the first two men she had killed—or the sword had killed almost without her help or knowledge—on her mind; they had been in the jeering circle of men who had ravished the dying priestess-swordswoman. So among other powers, the larith sword was spelled to vengeance on its own.

  But she, Lythande, had not even stopped with killing the men the sword wished to kill. She had killed the other two men in cold blood to protect the secret of her sex and her magic.

  Now the damned thing has 'entangled me not only in someone else's magic but in someone else's revenge!

  Had the sword drunk its fill, or was it one of those that would go on killing and killing until it was somehow-, unthinkably, sated? But now it seemed quiet enough in her scabbard. And after all, when she had killed the two who had either witnessed or shared in the rape of the Laritha, the compulsion had departed; the others she had killed more or less of her own free will.

  A pict
ure flashed behind her eyes: a burly man with a hook nose and ginger whiskers. He had been in the crowd around the dying Laritha and had escaped. He was not in the barracks behind the fountain, or no doubt the sword would have dragged her inside to kill him, probably killing everyone that lay between them.

  Now, perhaps, she could depart the city—she was not sure how far to the north lay the Forbidden Shrine, but she grudged every hour now before the larith sword was out of her hands.

  And I swear, from this day forth, I will never interfere—come battle, arson, murder, rape, or death— in any of the 9,090 forms the blinded eye of Keth has seen. I have had enough of somebody else's magic!

  Lythande turned and took a path toward the northern gate, striding with a long, competent pace that fairly ate up the distance, and that compelled young children playing in the streets or idlers lounging there to get out of the way, sometimes with most undignified haste. Still, it was late in the day and one of the pallid moons had appeared, like a shadowy corpse-face in the sky, before she sighted the northern gate. But she was no longer heading in its direction.

  Damnation! Had the thing spotted another prey? Now it took all Lythande's concentration to keep from snatching out the larith and holding it in her hand. She tried, deliberately, to slow her pace. She could do it, when she concentrated, which relieved her a little; at least she was not completely helpless before the magic of the Larithae. But it took fierce effort, and whenever her concentration slipped even a little, she was hurrying, pushed on by the infernal thing that nagged at her. If only it would let her know where it was going!

  No doubt the dead and ravished Laritha, the priestess who owned the sword or was owned by it, she was in the sword's confidence. Would Lythande really want •that, to be symbiote, sharing consciousness and purpose with some damned enchanted sword? Or was the sword enchanted only by the death of its owner, and did the Larithae normally carry it only for the purposes of an ordinary weapon?

  She wished the wretched sword would make up its mind. Again the face renewed itself in her mind, a man with ginger whiskers and a hook nose, but the chin of a rabbit with protruding buck teeth. Of course. Most men who would stoop to rape were ugly and near to impotence, anyhow; anything recognizably male could get a woman without resorting to force.

  Damn it, must she track down and kill everyone even in the crowd who had seen? If all who had witnessed the violation were dead, was the disgrace then canceled, or did it run so in the philosophy of the Larithae and their swords? She didn't want to know any more about it than she knew already. She wanted only to be rid of the thing.

  "Have a care where you step; ravisher of virgin goats," snarled a passerby, and Lythande realized she had stumbled again in her haste. She forced herself to stammer an apology, glad that the mage-robe was drawn about her face so that the Blue Star was invisible. Damn it, this had gone far enough. It was beginning to infringe on her very personality—she was Lythande, the core of whose reputation was for appearing and disappearing as if made of shadow. Her best spells could not rid her of it. She must now contrive to give it what it wanted, and be done with it, and swiftly. It would be just as bad if the marketplace gossiped about an Adept of the Blue Star bearing Larith magic, as if she should encounter her worst enemy so; only less swift.

  It would be easier if she knew where she was going. There was the continual temptation to fall into the dreamy hypnotic state, dragged on by the larith sword; but Lythande fought to remain alert. Once again she was lost in the tangled streets of a quarter in the city where she had never been. And then, crossing the square in front of a wineshop, one of those where the customs and drinkers all came spilling out into the street, she saw him: Ginger Whiskers.

  She wanted to stop and get a good look at the man she was fated to kill. It was against her principles to kill, for unknown reasons, men whose names she did not know.

  Yet she knew enough about him; he had violated, or attempted to violate, or witnessed the violation of a Laritha. In general, if rape were a capital crime in Old Gandrin, the city would be depopulated, thought Lythande; or inhabited only by women and those virgin goats who formed such a part in the profanity of that city. She supposed that was why there were not many unaccompanied women walking the streets in Old Gandrin.

  The Laritha and I. And she did not escape; and I only because my womanhood is unknown. The women of Old Gandrin seem to submit to that unwritten law, that the woman who walks alone can expect no more than ravishment. The Laritha sought to challenge it, and died.

  But she will be avenged. . . . And Lythande swore under her breath. She was acting as if it mattered a damn to her if every woman who had not the sense of wisdom to stay out of a ravisher's hands paid the penalty of that foolishness or incaution. She had had her fill of taking upon herself someone else's curse and someone else's magic.

  Was the sword of larith, then, which might never be borne by a man, beginning to work its accursed magic upon her? Lythande stopped dead in the middle of the square, trying not to stare across the intervening space at Ginger Whiskers. If she fought the sword's magic, could she let him live and turn and go on her way? Let someone else right the wrongs of the Larithae!

  What, after all, have I to do with women? If they do not wish for the common fate of women, let them do as I have done, renounce skirts and silks and the arts of the women's quarters, and put on sword and breeches or a mage-robe and dare the risks I have dared to leave all that behind me. I paid dear for my immunity.

  She suspected the Laritha had paid no less a price. But that was, after all, none of her concern. She took a deep breath, summoned her strongest spell, and by a great effort turned her back on Ginger Whiskers, walking in the opposite direction.

  Just in time, too. The hood of Lythande's mage-robe was drawn over her head, concealing the Blue Star; but beneath the heavy folds she could feel the small stinging that meant the star. was flaming, sparkling, and could see the blue lightnings above her eyes. Magic. . . .

  It was not the larith sword. That was quiet in her belt... no, somehow she had it in her hands. Lythande stood quietly, trying to fight back, and dared a peep beneath the mage-robe.

  It was not the flare of the Blue Star between her brows. Somehow she had seen, had seen . . . where was it, what had she seen? The man's back was turned to her, she could see the brown folds of a mage-robe not too unlike her own; but though she could not see forehead or star, she felt the Blue Star resonate in time with her own.

  He would feel it, too. I had better get out of here as fast as I can. Which settled it. Ginger Whiskers would not pay for his part in the ravishment of the Laritha. She, Lythande, had had enough of someone else's magic; she would take the larith sword northward to its shrine, but she was not, by Chaos and the Last Battle, going to be seen here in the presence of another of her Order, doing battle—or call it by its right name, murder— with a larith sword.

  The sword was quiet in her hand and made no apparent struggle when she slid it back into the scabbard, though at the last moment it seemed to Lythande that it squirmed a little, reluctant to be forced into the sheath. Too bad, she would give it no choice. Lythande muttered the words of a bonding-spell to keep it there, carefully slipped behind a pillar in the square, and cautiously, moving like a breath of wind or a northland ghost,. circled about until she could see, unseen, the man in the mage-robe. On her forehead, the Blue Star throbbed, and she could see by tiny movements of the man's hood that he, too, was trying to look about him unseen to know if another Pilgrim Adept was truly within the crowd in the square. Well, that was her greatest skill, to see without being seen.

  The man's hands, long-fingered and muscular, swordsman's hands, were clasped over the staff he bore. Not Rabben the Half-handed, then. He was tall and burly; if it was Ruhaven, he was one of her few friends in the Order, and he was not a north-country man, he would not know the technicalities of a Larith curse, would not, probably, know that a larith could be borne only by a woman. Lythande toyed briefly with t
he notion, if it was Ruhaven, of making some part of her predicament known to him. No more than she must, only that she had become saddled with an enchanted sword, perhaps ask his help in formulating a stronger unbinding-spell.

  The Pilgrim Adept turned with a slight twitch of his shoulders, and Lythande caught a glimpse of dark hair under the hood. Not Ruhaven, then—Ruhaven's gray hair was already turning white—and he was the only one in the Order to whom she felt she might have turned, at least before the Last Battle between Law and Chaos.

  And then the Pilgrim Adept made a gesture she recognized, and Lythande ducked her head further within the mage-robe's folds and tried to slither into the crowd, to reach its edge and drift unseen into the alley beyond the square and the tavern. Beccolo! It could hardly be worse. Yes, he thought Lythande a man. But they had once been pitted, within the Temple of the Star, in a magical duel, and it had not been Lythande who had" lost face that day.

  Beccolo might not know the details of Larith magic. He probably did not. But if he once recognized her, and especially if he should guess that she was hagridden by a curse, he would be in a hurry to have his revenge.

  And then with horror Lythande realized that while she was thinking about Beccolo and her consternation that it should be one of her worst enemies within the Pilgrim Adepts, she had lost her fierce concentration, by which alone she had kept control of the larith sword; it was out of the scabbard, naked now in her hand, and she was striking straight through the crowd, men and women shrinking back from her purposeful stride. Ginger Whiskers saw her and shrank back in consternation. Yesterday he had stood and cheered on the violation of a Larith—at least, of a woman rendered helpless by fearful odds. And he had been among those who took to their heels as a tall, lean fighter in a mage-robe with a Blue Star blazing lightning had cut down four men within as many seconds.

  His bench went over and he kicked away the man who went down with it, making for the far end of the square. Lythande thought, wrathfully: Go on, get the hell out of here; I don't want to kill you any more than you want to be killed. And she knew Beccolo's eyes were on her, and on the Blue Star now blazing between her brows. And Beccolo would have known her without that. Known her for the fellow Pilgrim Adept who had humiliated him in the outer courts of the Temple of the Star, when they were both novices and before the blazing star was set between either of their brows.