Bradley, Marion Zimmer - SSC 03 (6 page)

 
          
And
the karma of Lythande should stand forever responsible for the choice of
Rastafyre. Guardians of the Blue Star, stand witness 1 want no such
power,
I carry enough karma of my own! I have set enough
causes in motion and must see all their effects . . . abiding even to the Last
Battle
!

 
          
The
image of Roygan, ring in nose, still hung in the air, and around it the pattern
of Roygan s treasure room. But try as Lythande would, the Pilgrim Adept could
not focus the image sufficiently to see if the wand of Rastafyre was among his
treasure. So Lythande, with a commanding gesture, expanded the circle of vision
still further, to include a street outside whatever cellar or storeroom held
Roygan and his treasures. The circle expanded farther and farther, till at last
the magician saw a known landmark; the Fountain of Mermaids, in the Street of
the Seven Sailmakers. From there, apparently, the treasure room of Roygan the
Thief must be situated.

 
          
And
Rastafyre had risked his wand for an affair with Roygan's wife. Truly, Lythande
thought, my maxim is well-chosen, that a mage should have neither sweetheart
nor wife. . . .
and
bitterness flooded Lythande,
making the Blue Star glimmer;
Look what I do, for Koira's mere image or
shadow! But how did Rastafyre know?

 
          
For
in the days when Koira and Lythande played the lute in the courts of their
faraway home, both were young, and no shadow of the Blue Star or Lythande's
quest after magic, even into the hidden Place which Is Not of the Pilgrim
Adepts, had cast its shadow between them. And Lythande had borne another name.

 
          
Yet
Koira, or her shade, knew me, and called me by the name Lythande bears now. Why
called she not. . .
and then, by an enormous effort, almost physical, which
brought sweat bursting from the brow beneath the Blue Star, Lythande cut off
that memory; with the trained discipline of an Adept, even the memory of the
old name vanished.

 
          
/
am Lythande.
The one 1 was before 1 bore that
name is dead, or wanders in the limbo of the forgotten.
With another
gesture, Lythande dissolved the spelled circle of light, and stood again in the
streets of Old Gandrin, where Reth, too, had begun dangerously to approach the
horizon.

 
          
Lythande
set off toward the Street of the Seven Sail-makers. Keeping ever to the shadows
which hid the dark mage-robe, and moving as noiselessly as a breath of wind or
a cat's ghost, the Pilgrim Adept traversed a dozen streets, paying little heed
to all that inhabited them. Men brawled in taverns, and on the cobbled streets;
merchants sold everything from knives to women; children, grubby and
half-naked, played their own obscure games, vaulting over barrels and carts,
screaming with the joys and tantrums of innocence. Lythande, intent on the
magical mission, hardly saw or heard them.

 
          
At
the Fountain of Mermaids, half a dozen women, draped in the loose robes which
made even an ugly woman mysterious and alluring, drew water from the bubbling
spring, chirping and twittering like birds; Lythande watched them with a
curious, aching sadness. It would have been better to await their going, for
the comings and goings of a Pilgrim Adept are better not gossiped about; but
Reth was perilously near the horizon and Lythande sensed, in the way
a.magician will always know a danger, that even a Pilgrim Adept should not
attempt to invade the quarters of Roygan the Proud under cover of total night.

 
          
They
dissolved away, clutching with murmurs at their children, as Lythande appeared
noiselessly, as if from thin air, at the edge of the fountain square. One child
clung, giggling, to one of the sculptured mermaids, and the mother, who seemed
to Lythande little more than a child herself, came and snatched it up, covertly
making the sign against the Evil Eye
—
but
not covertly enough. Lythande stood directly barring her path back to the other
women, and said "Do you believe, woman, that I would curse you or your
child?"

 
          
The
woman looked at the ground, scuffing her sandaled foot on the cobbles, but her
hands, clutching the child to her breast, were white at the knuckles with fear,
and Lythande sighed.
Why did I do that?
At the sound of the sigh, the
woman looked up, a quick darting glance like a bird's, as quickly averted.

 
          
"The
blinded eye of Keth witness that I mean no harm to you or your
child,
and I would bless you if I knew any blessings,"
Lythande said at last, and faded into shadow so that the woman could gather the
courage to scamper away across the street, her child's grubby head clutched
against her breast. The encounter had left a taste of bitterness in Lythande's
mouth, but with iron discipline, the magician let it slide away into limbo, to
be taken out and examined, perhaps, when the bitterness had been attenuated by
Time.

 
          
"Ring,
sister of Roygan's ring, show me where, in the nose of Roygan the thief, I must
seek you!"

 
          
One
of the shadowed buildings edging the square seemed to fade somewhat in the
dying sunset; through the walls of.the building, Lythande could see rooms,
walls, shadows, the moving shadow of a woman unveiled, a saucy round-bodied
little creature with ringlets tumbled overa low brow, and the mark of a dimple
in her chin, and great dark-lashed eyes. So this was the woman for whom
Rastafyre the Incompetent had risked wand and magic and the vengeance of
Roygan?

 
          
Do
I scorn his choice because that path is barred to me?

 
          
Still;
madness, between the choice of love and power, to choose such counterfeit of
love as such a woman could give.
For, silently approaching the walls which
were all but transparent to Lythande's spelled Sight, the Pilgrim Adept could
see beneath the outer surface of artless coquetry, down to the very core of
selfishness and greed within the woman, her grasping at treasures, not for
their beauty but for the power they gave her. Rastafyre had not seen so deep
within. Was he blinded by lust, then, or was it only further evidence of the
name Lythande had given him,
Incompetent?

 
          
With
a gesture, Lythande banished the spelled Sight; there was no need of it now,
but there was need of haste, for Reth's orange rim actually caressed the western
rim of the world.
Yet I can be in, and out, unseen, before the light is
wholly gone,
Lythande thought, and, gesturing darkness to rise like a more
enveloping mage-robe, stepped through the stone wall. It felt grainy, like
walking through maize-dough, but nothing worse. Nevertheless Lythande
hastened, pulling against the resistance of the stone; there were tales,
horror tales told in the outer courts of the Pilgrim Adepts where this art was
taught, of an Adept of the Blue Star who had lost his courage halfway through
the wall, and stuck there, half of his body still trapped within the stone,
shrieking with pain until he died. . . . Lythande hated to risk this walking
through walls, and usually relied on silence, stealth and spells applied to
locks. But there was no time even to find the locks, far less to sound them out
by magic and press by magic upon the sensitive tumblers of the bolts. When
all the
magician's body was within the shadowy room,
Lythande drew a breath of relief; even the smell of mold and cobwebs was
preferable to the grainy feel of the wall, and now, whatever came, Lythande
resolved to go out by the door.

 
          
And
now, in the heavy darkness of Roygan's treasure room, the light of the Blue
Star alone would serve; Lythande felt the curious prickling, half pain, as the
Blue Star began to glow. ...
a
blue light stole
through the darkness, and by that subtle illumination, the Pilgrim Adept made
out the contours of great chests, carelessly heaped jewels, bolted boxes . . .
where, in all this hodgepodge of stolen treasure, laid up magpie fashion by
Roygan's greed, was Rastafyre's wand to be found? Lythande paused, thoughtful,
by one great heap of jewels, rubies blazing like Keth's rays at sunrise,
sapphires flung like dazzling reflections of the light of the Blue Star, a
superb diamond necklace loosely flung like a constellation blazing beneath the
pole-star of a single great gem. Lythande had spoken truly to Rastefyre, jewels
were no temptation, yet for a moment the magician thought almost sadly of the
women whose throats and slender arms and fingers had once been adorned with
these jewels; why should Roygan profit by their great losses, if they felt the
need of these toys and trinkets to enhance their beauty? And Lythande hesitated,
considering. There was a spell which, once spoken, would disperse all these
jewels back to their rightful owners, by the Law of Resonances.

 
          
Yet
why should Lythande take on the karma of these unknown women, women Lythande
would never see or know? If it had not been their just fate to lose the jewels
to the clever hands of a thief, no doubt Roygan would have sought in vain for
the keys to their treasure chests.

 
          
By
that same token, why should I interfere with my magic in the just karma of
Rastafyre, who lost his wand because he could not contain his lust for the wife
of Roygan? Would not the loss of wand and virility teach him a just respect for
the discipline of continence? It would not be for long, only till he could take
the trouble to fashion and consecrate another wand of Power. . .

 
          
But
Lythande had given the word of a Pilgrim Adept; for the honor of the Blue Star,
what was promised must be performed. Sworn to the Law, it was Lythande's sworn
duty to punish a thief, and all the more because Roygan preyed, not on Lythande
whose defenses were sufficient for revenge, but upon'the harmless Rastafyre . .
. and if Roygan's wife found him not sufficient, then that was Roygan's karma
too. Shivering somewhat in the darkness of the storeroom, Lythande whispered
the spell that would make the treasure boxes transparent to the Sight. By the
witchlight, Lythande scanned box after box, seeing nothing which might, by the
remotest chance, be the wand of Rastafyre.

 
          
And
outside the light was fading fast, and in the darkness, all the things of magic
would be loosed. . . .

 
          
And
as if the thought had summoned it, suddenly it was there, though Lythande had
not seen any door by which it could have entered the treasure chamber, a great
grey shape, leaping high at the mage's throat. Lythande whirled, whipping out
the dagger on the right, and thrust, hard, at the bane-wolfs throat.

 
          
It
went through the throat as if through air. Not a true beast, then, but a
magical one. . . . Lythande dropped the right-hand dagger, and snatched,
left-handed, at the other, the dagger intended for fighting the powers and
beasts of magic; but the delay had been nearly fatal; the teeth of the
bane-wolf met, like fiery needles, in Lythande's right arm, forcing a cry from
the magician's lips. It went unheard; the magical beast fought in silence,
without a snarl or a sound even of breathing; Lythande thrust with the
left-hand dagger, but could not reach the heart; then the bane-wolfs uncanny
weight bore Lythande, writhing, to the ground. Again the needle-teeth of the
enchanted creature met like flame in Lythande's shoulder, then in the knee
thrust up to ward the beast from the throat. Lythande knew; if the fiery teeth
met but once in the throat, it would cut off breath and life. Slowly,
painfully, fighting upward, thrusting again and again, Lythande managed to
wrestle the beast back, at the cost of bite after bite from the cruel.
flame-teeth
; the bane-wolfs blazing eyes flashed against the
light of the Blue Star, which grew fainter and feebler as Lythande's struggles
weakened.

 
          
Have
I come this far to die in a dark cellar in the maw of a wolf, and not even a
true wolf, but a thing created by the filthy misuse of sorcery at the hands of
a thief?

 
          
The
thought maddened the magician; with a fierce effort, Lythande thrust the
magical dagger deeper into the shoulder of the were-beast, seeking for the
heart. With the full thrust of the spell, backed by all Lythande's agony, the
magician's very arm thrust through un-natural flesh and bone, striking inward to
the lungs, into the very heart of the creature. . . . the blazing breath of the
wolf smoked and failed; Lythande withdrew arm and dagger, slimed with the
magical blood, as the beast, in eerie silence, writhed and died on the floor,
slowly curling and melting into wisps of smoke, until only a little heap of
ember, like burnt blood, remained on the floor of the treasure room.