Bradley, Marion Zimmer - SSC 03 (11 page)

 
          
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
picture 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.