The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (32 page)

“Kane!” The name exploded from his lips in amazement.
What had
this girl to do...?
But Dragar looked again at her sophisticated beauty,
her luxurious attire, and understanding dawned. Angrily he became
aware that the tavern uproar had become subdued on the echo of his
outburst. Several faces had turned to him, their expressions uneasy,
calculating.

The barbarian clapped a hand to his sword hilt. “Here’s a man
who doesn’t fear a name!” he announced. “I’ve heard something of
Carsultyal’s most dreaded sorcerer, but his name means less than a
fart to me! There’s steel in this sword that can slice through the best
your world-famed master smiths can forge, and it thrives on the gore
of magicians. I call the blade Wizard’s Bane, and there are souls in
Hell who will swear that its naming is no boast!”

Dessylyn stared at him in sudden fascination.

And what came after, Dessylyn?

I...I’m not sure.... My mind—I was in a state of shock, I suppose.
I remember holding his head for what seemed like forever. And then I
remember sponging off the blood with water from the wooden lavabo, and
the water was so cold and so red, so red. I must have put on my clothes....
Yes, and I remember the city and walking and all those faces.... All those
faces...they stared at me, some of them. Stated and looked away, stared and
looked compassionate, stared and looked curious, stared and made awful
suggestions.... And some just ignored me, didn’t see me at all. I can’t think
which faces were the most cruel.... I walked, walked so long.... I remember the
pain.... I remember my tears, and the pain when there were no more tears....
I remember.... My mind was dazed.... My memory.... I can’t remember....

IV. A Ship Will Sail....

He looked up from his work and saw her standing there on the quay—
watching him, her face a strange play of intensity and indecision.
Mavrsal grunted in surprise and straightened from his carpentry. She
might have been a phantom, so silently had she crept upon him.

“I had to see if...if you were all right,” Dessylyn told him with an
uncertain smile.

“I am—aside from a crack on my skull,” Mavrsal answered, eyeing
her dubiously.

By the dawnlight he had crawled from beneath the overturned
furnishings of his cabin. Blood matted his thick hair at the back of his
skull, and his head throbbed with a deafening ache, so that he had
sat dumbly for a long while, trying to recollect the events of the night.
Something
had come through the door, had hurled him aside like a
spurned doll. And the girl had vanished...carried off by the demon?
Her warning had been for him; for herself she evidenced not fear,
only resigned despair.

Or had some of his men returned to carry out their threats? Had
too much wine, the blow on his head...? But no, Mavrsal knew better.
His assailants would have robbed him, made certain of his death—had
any human agency attacked him. She had called herself a sorcerer’s
mistress, and it had been sorcery that spread its black wings over his
caravel. Now the girl had returned, and Mavrsal’s greeting was tem
pered by his awareness of the danger which shadowed her presence.

Dessylyn must have known his thoughts. She backed away, as if
to turn and go.

“Wait!” he called suddenly.

“I don’t want to endanger you any further.”

Mavrsal’s quick temper responded. “Danger! Kane can bugger
with his demons in Hell, for all I care! My skull was too thick for
his creature to split, and if he wants to try his hand in person, I’m
here to offer him the chance!” There was gladness in her wide eyes
as Dessylyn stepped toward him. “His necromancies have exhausted
him,” she assured the other. “Kane will sleep for hours yet.”

Mavrsal handed her over the rail with rough gallantry. “Then
perhaps you’ll join me in my cabin. It’s grown too dark for carpentry,
and I’d like to talk with you. After last night, I think I deserve to have
some questions answered, anyway.”

He struck fire to a lamp and turned to find her balanced at the
edge of a chair, watching him nervously. “What sort of questions?”
she asked in an uneasy tone.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Mavrsal made a vague gesture. “Why everything. Why did you get
involved with this sorcerer? Why does he hold to you, if you hate him
so? Why can’t you leave him?”

She gave him a sad smile that left him feeling naïve. “Kane is...a
fascinating man; there is a certain magnetism about him. And I won’t
deny the attraction his tremendous power and wealth held for me.
Does it matter? It’s enough to say that there was a time when we met
and I fell under Kane’s spell. It may be that I loved him once—but
I’ve since hated too long and to deeply to remember.

“But Kane continues to love me in his way.
Love!
His is the love
of a miser for his hoard, the love of a connoisseur for some exquisitely
wrought carving, the love a spider feels for its imprisoned prey! I’m
his treasure, his possession—and what concern are the feelings of a
lifeless object to its owner? Would the curious circumstance that his
prized statue might hate him lessen the pleasure its owner derives from
its possession?

“And leave him?” Her voice broke. “By the gods, don’t you think
I’ve tried?”

His thoughts in a turmoil, Mavrsal studied the girl’s haunted face.
“But why accept defeat? Past failure doesn’t mean you can’t try again.
If you’re free to roam the streets of Carsultyal at night, your feet can
take you farther still. I see no chain clamped to that collar you wear.”

“Not all chains are visible.”

“So I’ve heard, though I’ve never believed it. A weak will can
imagine its own fetters.”

“Kane won’t let me leave him.”

“Kane’s power doesn’t reach a tenth so far as he believes.”

“There are men who would dispute that, if the dead cared to share
the wisdom that came to them too late.”

Challenge glinted in the girl’s green eyes as they held his. Mavrsal
felt the spell of her beauty, and his manhood answered. “A ship sails
where its master wills it—may the winds and the tides and perils of
the sea be damned!”

Her face craned closer. Tendrils of her auburn hair touched his
arm. “There is courage in your words. But you know little of Kane’s
power.”

He laughed recklessly. “Let’s say I’m not cowed by his name.”

From the belt of her gown, Dessylyn unfastened a small scrip. She
tossed the leather pouch toward him.

Catching it, Mavrsal untied the braided thong and dumped its
contents onto his palm. His hand shook. Gleaming gemstones
tumbled in a tiny rainbow, clattered onto the cabin table. In his hand
lay a fortune in rough-cut diamonds, emeralds, other precious stones.

Through their multihued reflections his face framed a question.

“I think there is enough to repair your ship, to pay her crew....”
She paused; brighter flamed the challenge in her eyes. “Perhaps to
buy my passage to a distant port—if you dare!”

The captain of the
Tuab
swore. “I meant what I said, girl! Give me
another few days to refit her, and I’ll sail you to lands where no man
has ever heard the name of Kane!”

“Later you may change your mind,” Dessylyn warned. She rose
from her chair. Mavrsal thought she meant to leave, but then he saw
that her fingers had loosened other fastenings at her belt. His breath
caught as the silken gown began to slip from her shoulders.

“I won’t change my mind,” he promised, understanding why Kane
might go to any extreme to keep Dessylyn with him.

V. Wizard’s Bane

“Your skin is like the purest honey,” proclaimed Dragar ardently. “By
the gods, I swear you even taste like honey!”

Dessylyn squirmed in pleasure and hugged the barbarian’s
shaggy blond head to her breasts. After a moment she sighed and
languorously pulled from his embrace. Sitting up, she brushed her
slim fingers through the tousled auburn wave that cascaded over her
bare shoulders and back, clung in damp curls to her flushed skin.

Dragar’s calloused hand imprisoned her slender wrist as she sought
to rise from the rumpled bed. “Don’t prance away like a contrite
virgin, girl. Your rider has dismounted but for a moment’s rest—then
he’s ready to gallop through the palace gates another time or more,
before the sun drops beneath the sea.”

“Pretty, but I have to go,” she protested. “Kane may grow suspi
cious....”

“Bugger Kane!” cursed Dragar, pulling the girl back against him.
His thick arms locked about her, and their lips crushed savagely.
Cupped over a small breast, his hand felt the pounding of her heart,
and the youth laughed and tilted back her feverish face. “Now tell me
you prefer Kane’s effete pawings to a man’s embrace!”

A frown drifted like a sudden thunderhead. “You underestimate
Kane. He’s no soft-fleshed weakling.” The youth snarled in jealousy.
“A foul sorcerer who’s skulked in his tower no one knows how long!
He’ll have dust for blood, and dry rot in his bones! But go to him if
you prefer his toothless kisses and withered loins!”

“No, dearest! Yours are the arms I love to lie within!” Dessylyn
cried, entwining herself about him and soothing his anger with
kisses. “It’s just that I’m frightened for you. Kane isn’t a withered
graybeard. Except for the madness in his eyes, you would think Kane
a hardened warrior in his prime. And you’ve more than his sorcery to
fear. I’ve seen Kane kill with his sword—he’s a deadly fighter!”

Dragar snorted and stretched his brawny frame. “No warrior
hides behind a magician’s robes. He’s but a name—an ogre’s name to
frighten children into obedience. Well, I don’t fear his name, nor do I
fear his magic, and my blade has drunk the blood of better swordsmen
than your black-hearted tyrant ever was!”

“By the gods!” whispered Dessylyn, burrowing against his thick
shoulder. “Why did fate throw me into Kane’s web instead of into
your arms!”

“Fate is what man wills it. If you wish it, you are my woman now.”

“But Kane....”

The barbarian leaped to his feet and glowered down at her.
“Enough sniveling about Kane, girl! Do you love me or not?”

“Dragar, beloved, you know I love you! Haven’t these past days...”

“These past days have been filled with woeful whimperings about
Kane, and my belly grows sick from hearing it! Forget Kane! I’m
taking you from him, Dessylyn! For all her glorious legend and over-
mighty towers, Carsultyal is a stinking pesthole like every other city
I’ve known. Well, I’ll waste no more days here.

“I’ll ride from Carsultyal tomorrow, or take passage on a ship,
perhaps. Go to some less stagnant land, where a bold man and a
strong blade can win wealth and adventure! You’re going with me.”

“Can you mean it, Dragar?”

“If you think I lie, then stay behind.”

“Kane will follow.”

“Then he’ll lose his life along with his love!” sneered Dragar.

With confident hands, he slid from its scabbard his great sword of
silver-blue metal. “See this blade,” he hissed, flourishing its massive
length easily. “I call it Wizard’s Bane, and there’s reason to the name.
Look at the blade. It’s steel, but not steel such as your secretive smiths
forge in their dragon-breath furnaces. See the symbols carved into
the forte. This blade has power! It was forged long ago by a master
smith who used the glowing heart of a fallen star for his ore, who
set runes of protection into the finished sword. Who wields Wizard’s
Bane need not fear magic, for sorcery can have no power over him.
My sword can cleave through the hellish flesh of demons. It can ward
off a sorcerer’s enchantments and skewer his evil heart!