Bradley, Marion Zimmer - SSC 03 (23 page)

 
          
"Uthriel,
Mastrakal, Ithragal, Ruvaghiel, angels and archangels of the Abyss, be what is
bound together undone and freed, so may it be as it was commanded at the
beginning of the world; So it was, so it is, so shall it be and no
otherwise!"

 
          
Blue
lightnings flamed from an empty sky; the Blue Star on Lythande's forehead
crackled with icy force that was almost pain. Lythande could see the lines of
light about the lute, pale against the noonday glare. One by one, the strings
of the lute uncoiled from the pegs and slithered to the ground. The lace
holding Lythande's tunic slowly unlaced itself, and the strip wriggled to the
ground. The bootlaces, like twin serpents, crawled down the boots through the
holes in reverse order, and writhed like live things to the ground. The
intricate knot in her belt untied itself and the belt slithered away and fell.

 
          
Then,
slowly, the threads sewing her tunic at sides and shoulders unraveled, coming
free stitch by stitch, and the tunic, two pieces of cloth, fell to the ground,
but the process did not stop there; the embroidered braid with which the tunic
was trimmed came unsewed and uncoiled bit by bit till it was mere scraps of
thread lying on the grass. The side seams unstitched themselves, a little at a
time, in the breeches she wore; and finally the sewn stitches of the boots
crawled down the leather so that the boots lay in pieces on the ground, while
Lythande still stood on the bootsoles. Only the mage-robe, woven without seam
and spelled into its final form, maintained its original shape, although the
pin came undone, the metal bending itself to slip free of its clasp, and
clinked on the hard stones.

 
          
Ruefully,
Lythande gathered up the remains of clothing and boots. The boots could be
resewn in the next town that boasted a cobbler's shop, and there were spare
clothes in the pack she had fortunately thought to carry out of reach.
Meanwhile it would not be the first time a Pilgrim Adept had gone barefoot, and
it was worth the wreck of the clothing to be freed of the accursed, the
disgusting, the fantastic enchantment laid on that lute.

 
          
It
lay harmless and silent before the minstrel magician; a lute, Lythande hoped,
like any other, bearing no magic but its own music. Lythande found a spare
tunic and breeches in the pack, girded on the twin daggers once more (marveling
at any spell that could untie the mage-knot her fingers had tied, by habit, on
the belt) and sat down to re-string the lute.

 
          
Then
she went southward, whistling.

 
          
At
first Lythande thought the fierce pain between her brows was the glare of the
noonday sunlight, and readjusted the deep cowl of the mage-robe so that her
brow was shadowed. Then it occurred to her that perhaps the strong magic had
wearied her, so she sat on a flat rock beside the trail and ate dried fruits
and journey-bread from her pack, looking about to be sure she was unobserved
except by a curious bird or two.

 
          
She
fed the crumbs to the birds, and re-slung her pack and the lute. Only when she
had traveled half a mile or so did she realize that the sun was no longer
glaring in her eyes and that she was traveling northward again.

 
          
Well,
this was unfamiliar country; she might well have mistaken her way. She stopped,
reversed her bearings and began to retrace her steps.

 
          
An
hour later, she found herself traveling northward again, and when she tried to
turn toward Old Gandrin and the southlands the racking queasiness and pain were
more than she could bear.

 
          
Damn
the hedge-wizard who gave me
that spell
!
Wryly, Lythande
reflected that the curse was probably redundant. Turning northward, and
feeling, with relief, the slackening of the pain of the binding-spell, Lythande
resigned herself. She had always wanted to see the city of
Northwander
: there was a college of
wizards there who were said to keep records of every spell which had ever
wrought its magic upon the world. Now, at least, Lythande had the best of
reasons for seeking them out.

 
          
But
her steps lagged resentfully on the northward road.

 
          
There
was no sign of city, village or castle. In even a small village she could have
her boots resewn
—
she must think up some good
story to explain how they had come undone
—
and
in a larger city she might find a spell-candler who might sell her an
unbinding-spell. Though, if the powerful spell she had already used did not
work, she was unlikely to find a workable spell this side of Northwander and
the college of wizards.

 
          
She
had come down from the mountain and was traversing a woody region, damp from
the spring rains, which gradually grew wetter and wetter underfoot till Lythande's
second-best boots squelched and let in water at every step. At the edges of
the muck-dabbed trail •were soggy trees and drooping shagroots covered in
hanging moss.

 
          
/
cannot believe that the lute means to lead me into this dismal bog,
thought
Lythande, but when, experimentally, she tried to reverse direction, the
queasiness and pain returned. Indeed, the lute
was
leading her into the
bog, farther and farther until it was all but impossible to distinguish between
the soggy path and the mire to either side.

 
          
Where
can the accursed thing
be
taking me?
There was no
sign of human habitation anywhere, nor any dwellers but the frogs who croaked
off-key in dismal minor thirds. Was she indeed to sup tonight with the frogs
and crocodiles
who
might inhabit this dreadful place?

           
To make matters worse, it began to
drizzle
—
though it was already so wet
underfoot that it made little difference to the supersaturated ground
—
and then to rain in good earnest.

 
          
The
mage-robe was impervious to the damp, but Lythande's feet were soaked in the
mud, her legs covered with mud and water halfway to the knees, and still the
lute continued to lead her farther into the mire. It was dark now; even the
mage's sharp eyes could no longer discern the path, and once she measured her
length on the ground, soaking what garments remained dry under the mage-robe.
She paused, intending, first to make a spell of light, and then to find some
sort of shelter, even if only under a dry bush, to wait for light and sunshine
and, perhaps, dry weather.

 
          
/
cannot believe
,
she thought crossly,
that
the lute has in sober truth led me into this impassable marsh! What sort of
enchantment is that?

 
          
She
had come to a standstill, and was searching in her mind for the most effective
light-spell, wishing that she, like Eirthe, had access to a friendly
fire-elemental to supply not only light but heat, when a glimmer showed through
the murky darkness, and strengthened momentarily.
A hunter's
campfire?
The cottage of a mushroom-farmer or a seller
of frogskins or some such trade which could be carried on in this infernal
sloshing wilderness?

 
          
Perhaps
she could beg shelter there for the night
./
/
this
infernal lute will permit.
The thought was grim. But as she turned her
steps toward the light, there was the smallest of sounds from the lute.
Satisfaction?
Pleasure?
Was this,
then, some part of Tashgan's appointed rounds? She did not admire Ellifanwy's
taste, if the old sorceress had indeed set this as a part of the lute's
wandering.

 
          
She
plodded on through the mire at such a speed as the sucking bog underfoot would
allow, and after a time came to what looked like a cottage, with light spilling
through the window. Inside the firelight was almost like the light of a
fire-elemental, which came near to searing Lythande's eyes; but when she
covered them and looked again, the light came from a perfectly ordinary fire in
an ordinary fireplace, and by its glow Lythande saw a little old lady, in a
gown of bottle-green, after the fashion of a few generations ago, with a white
linen mutch covering her hair, pottering about the fire.

 
          
Lythande
raised her hand to knock, but the door swung slowly open, and a soft sweet
voice called out, "Come in, my dear; I have been expecting you."

 
          
The
star on Lythande's brow prickled blue fire. Magic, then, nearby, and the little
old lady was a hearth-witch or a wise-woman, which could explain why she made
her home in this howling wilderness. Many women with magical powers were
neither liked nor welcomed among mankind. Lythande, in her male disguise, had
not been subjected to this, but she had seen it all too often during her long
life.

 
          
She
stepped inside, wiping the moisture from her eyes. Where had the little old
lady gone? Facing her was a tall, imposing, beautiful woman, in a gown of green
brocade and satin with a jeweled circlet in the satiny dark curls. Her eyes
were fixed, in dismay and disbelief, on the lute and on Lythande. Her deep
voice had almost the undertone of a beast's snarl.

 
          
"Tashgan's lute!
But where is Tashgan? How did you come
by his instrument?"

 
          
"Lady,
it is a long story," Lythande said, through the burning of the Blue Star
which told her that she was surrounded by alien magic, "and I have been
wandering half the night in this accursed bog, and I am soaked to the very
skin. I beg of you, allow me to warm myself at your fire, and you shall be told
everything; there is time for the telling of many long tales before the final
battle between Law and Chaos."

           
"And why should you curse my
chosen home, this splendid marsh?" the lady said, with a scowl coming
between her fine-arched brows, and Lythande drew a long breath.

 
          
"Only
that in this
—
this blessed expanse of bog
and marsh and frogs I have becomes drenched, muddied, and lost," she said,
and the lady gestured her to the fire.

 
          
"For
the sake of Tashgan's lute I make you welcome, but I warn you, if you have
harmed him, slain him or taken his lute by force, stranger, this is your last
hour; make, therefore, the best of it."

 
          
Lythande
went to the fire, pulled off the mage-robe and disposed it on the hearth where
the surface water and mud would dry; removed the sodden boots and stockings,
the outer tunic and trousers, standing in a linen under-tunic and drawers to
dry them in the fire-heat. She was not too sure of customs this near to
Northwander, but she surmised that the man she appeared to be would not, for
modesty's sake, strip to the skin before a strange woman, and that custom of
modesty safeguarded her disguise.

 
          
Lythande
could
—
briefly, when she must
—
cast over herself the glamour of a naked man; but she hated
doing it, and the illusion was dangerous, for it could not hold long, and not
at all, she suspected, in the presence of this alien magic.

 
          
The
lady, meanwhile, busied herself about the fire
—
in
a way, Lythande thought as she watched her out of the corner of her eye, better
fitted to the little old lady she had first appeared to be. When Lythande's
under-tunic stopped steaming, she hung the outer clothing to dry over a rack,
and dipped up soup from
a kettle
, cut bread from a
crusty loaf, and set it on a bench before the fire.

 
          
"I
beg of you, share my poor supper; it is hardly worthy of a great magician, as
you seem to be, but I heartily make you welcome to it."

 
          
The
vows of an Adept of the Blue Star forbade Lythande to eat or drink in the sight
of any man; however, women did not fall under the prohibition, and whether this
was the little old hearth-witch she had first surmised, or whether the
beautiful lady put on the hearth-witch disguise that she might not be easy prey
for such robbers or beggarly men as might make their way into the bog, she was
at least woman. So Lythande ate and drank the food, which was delicious; the
bread had the very texture and scent she remembered from her half-forgotten
home country.