Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXV Read online

  Marion Zimmer Bradley's

  Sword & Sorceress 25

  edited by

  Elisabeth Waters

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Elisabeth Waters

  The Etherine Road

  Dave Smeds

  Caden's Death

  Amy Griswold

  Matriculation

  Michael H. Payne

  Inquisition for Blood

  Michael Spence & Elisabeth Waters

  Fire and Fate

  Deborah J. Ross

  Winter in Khotan

  Catherine Soto

  The Sorceress's Apprentice

  Pauline J. Alama

  Pantheon Shift Change

  L.M. Townsend-Crow

  The Sundered Star

  K.D. Wentworth

  A Wall To Keep The World Out

  Helen E. Davis

  Killing Stars

  Robin Wayne Bailey

  Proving Grounds

  Steve Chapman

  Mira

  Steven Brust

  Impossible Quests

  Kate Coombs

  Ghost Puppet

  Jonathan Moeller

  Well Enough

  Lauren K. Moody

  The Lost and Found Talisman

  Josepha Sherman

  Simon's Fish

  Barbara Tarbox

  Homecoming

  Jonathan Shipley

  Saved by the Soap

  Susan Wolven

  Kindle books in the Sword & Sorceress series

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Elisabeth Waters

  I recently attended a meeting where a writer was talking about creating suspense—at least that was the announced title of his talk. What he talked about more than suspense, however, was character. After all, if readers don't care about the character, they won't care how much jeopardy he or she is in.

  I was reminded of his talk every day of the reading period as I read through the slush pile. I would have to say that many of the stories I sent back this year were rejected because I didn't like the protagonist enough to care what happened to her. This does not necessarily mean that the story wasn't good; it's possible that another editor would like the character, and there are certainly wide variations between various markets. What all of us have in common is that we're looking for stories that provide what MZB used to call a "satisfying reading experience" for our audience.

  I found myself remembering Randall Garrett's song "You've Got to Make It Good To Be a Seller" from his musical comedy Free Amazons of Ghor. (It was written in the 1970s, when Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books and John Norman's Gor books were DAW's top-selling series, and the premise was that the two authors should collaborate.) The song in question is a patter song (like Gilbert and Sullivan's "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from Pirates of Penzance) sung by the Editor, and it starts with the Iliad and goes forward through time through five verses (at least two of which were generally cut in performance). The last verse contains a list of possible characters:

  Use robots, monsters, demons, apes, or even a gazelle

  (provided they are basically human personnel),

  Then you will please your readers...

  What Randall was saying in the line about "basically human personnel" was that the reader must be able to identify with the character, and—as he pointed out—this does not mean that the character must be human. I have bought four stories in which the protagonist is a squirrel, which certainly proves his point.

  So here are the characters that grabbed my attention at the beginning, held it throughout the story, and made me glad I'd spent time with them at the end. I hope that you like them as much as I did.

  —Elisabeth Waters

  The Etherine Road

  Dave Smeds

  Stories about princesses and chivalrous knights go back for centuries—it's a pairing that's been used many, many times. Dave, however, has created an unusual knight and an even more unusual princess. His ability to take an old theme and make something new and different from it is one of the many reasons I look forward to receiving a story from him each year.

  Sword and sorcery works by Dave Smeds include his novels THE SORCERY WITHIN and THE SCHEMES OF DRAGONS and many shorter pieces, including those in ten previous volumes of SWORD & SORCERESS. He would like to specifically direct readers to his contribution to the forthcoming LACE & BLADE 3, edited by Deborah Ross, who also has a story in this volume. LACE & BLADE 3 will be published on February 14, 2011. Dave writes in many genres, from science fiction to contemporary fantasy to horror to superhero and others, and has been a Nebula Award finalist. He lives in the Napa/Sonoma wine country of California with his wife and son. In addition to being an author, he has been a farmer, graphic artist, and karate instructor.

  "She's drunk again," the guard said as he unlocked the door to the witch's aerie.

  Fox heard singing. Off-key. Hoarse. Simultaneously boisterous and bitter.

  He found the witch floating just under the rafters at the limit of her tether, her short hair waving about her head like filaments of anemone.

  "Don't mind me," she called down. "I'm just enjoying the view."

  There was no view other than through the arrow slits—apertures that were all angled downward, the better to permit archers to release their missiles at those who might attack the castle's main gates. Housing his sister in quarters with true windows was not a risk the king was willing to take.

  "You would think they'd let you look up," he commented. "All things considered."

  "No matter," she hiccupped. "After all, I'm made to look down."

  The witch pushed off a cornice and drifted nearer, squinting.

  "You are Sir Foxtread, are you not?"

  "Indeed I am, Your Highness."

  "You don't look the same."

  "I try never to look the same twice. I'm sure you'll appreciate the reasoning."

  "Mmm. Yes. I liked the beard, though." She raised her goblet to her mouth and inverted it. One last drop fell on her tongue. "I suppose if you're here, I can't have a refill."

  "I'm afraid not. You need to sober up for the mission."

  "What's the fun in that?" she asked.

  "None at all," he admitted.

  He hooked one of his feet beneath the counterweight and pulled her down to her chair. She tried to strap herself in, but her fingers were no more deft than a bowl of noodles. He took over. A heavy aroma of pomegranate brandy wafted over him when she exhaled.

  She studied him while he tightened the buckles. It was a sort of scrutiny Fox was no longer used to. Most people were daunted by the prospect of examining him within range of his knife.

  She ran a finger along the tattoos lining the inside of his forearm, the account of which masters he had studied with, and in which assassin's arts he had earned his marque.

  "You're so much smaller than the others. How did you get to be so deadly?"

  "I move quietly. It's why they call me Foxtread."

  "That's how it will be tonight?"

  "Yes. Either I will be stealthy, or I will not live to see the dawn."

  "Must we do this?" she asked.

  "The prey we hunt is an evil man."

  She let go of his arm. She turned her gaze away. "As evil as the king?"

  Fox stood. "That's quite a question. All I can tell you is, it's not our task to kill the king."

  "I am weary of deaths," she murmured. "Evil men or not."

  Fox wanted to fold her hands in his, tell her she need have no part in the mission. But he couldn't offer her that. H
e couldn't even offer her a drink.

  "You must help me fulfill this task, Your Highness. You know that."

  She sagged. Or would have sagged, had she been any other sort of woman. Heaviness was not a thing she could manifest. Her form still tugged at the straps, wanting to return to the ceiling. Her bosom still rode as high as a maiden's. She was old enough now she should have had a slackness to her features, but no flesh had settled along her jawline.

  "As you say, Sir Foxtread. Tonight we fly."

  "The maidservants will be here soon to get you ready," he said. "I will see you at nightfall at the platform."

  * * * *

  Fox arrived at the towertop while the sky to the west was still buttery. He watched dusk settle over the kingdom. There was no better place to do that than here.

  Mount Smoke faded into the dimness to the southeast. Bats emerged from their roosts in the old keep across the river. In the streets below, tavernkeepers lit their lintel lamps.

  The king's chamberlain led the witch's entourage. The witch herself emerged from the stairwell between two hefty guards, the counterweights dangling from her belt making it possible for her to actually walk on her feet. A pair of servant girls brought up the rear.

  The witch had been sewn into her flight harness. The amulet had been padlocked in place at her sternum. Newly activated, it gave off pulses of midnight blue light. It was just enough illumination that Fox could see the lines in the witch's forehead, the evidence of her hangover.

  The chamberlain gave a down-the-nose glance at Fox. Such an odious man. Fox hoped one day to throttle his birdlike neck, one day when a better regime was in power.

  At the pedestal at the center of the platform, the chamberlain set his hand on the lodestone and recited the incantation. The sphere moaned to life.

  The chamberlain gestured peremptorily at the witch. With a weary sigh, she set her hand to her amulet and uttered, "The King's Welcome."

  The amulet began trying to tug her forward. Once the guards removed the weights on her belt and released their grip on her arms, she floated over to the pedestal. Her velocity slowed as she drew near, so that when the amulet and the lodestone finally touched, the contact was as soft as a kiss.

  Now that the witch was anchored in place by the magic, the servant girls rolled up her cape. Her tunic's design left much of her back bare. Pale skin was revealed to the moonlight. One of the girls took talc from a sack and spread it over the area.

  Fox unlaced his vest, exposing the front of his torso. The other girl spread talc upon him.

  The chamberlain handed him the vial of potion. The elixir trickled down his throat slow as honey and with none of the sweetness. Fox struggled not to gag.

  The chamberlain snickered.

  When the dose had done its work, Fox pressed himself against the witch's back. He waved away the servant girls as they started to buckle the straps that would fasten tunic to vest. He would have to free himself in a few hours. Best that he confirmed now that the bonds were all within his reach.

  Her back was cold against him. Eldritch cold. It went from that to numb as the enchantment blended into him. The tug of the earth faded. Unlike the two previous times he had endured it, the transition did not make him queasy. He settled immediately into the peace the lightness brought with it.

  His boots lost contact with the top of the tower. He rose up, the only thing keeping him from climbing into the sky being the harness that kept him front-to-back against the witch, and the only thing keeping her down being the marriage of lodestone and amulet.

  The chamberlain moved in and set his hand on the lodestone once more. "Fare well. Death to the enemy of the king." Then he spoke the phrase that stilled the talisman's power.

  Immediately Fox and the witch rose. The group on the tower vanished into the dimness, their presence evidenced only as a set of increasingly small circles of lamplight.

  The castle and town unfolded below, a tapestry of glowing windows. The surrounding farmlands were sketched in greys and blacks, a glimmer of argent indicating the course of the river.

  They reached the point of equilibrium at a level Fox judged to be three times as high as an arrow shot from the mightiest of longbows could reach.

  "I could never tire of this," Fox said in awe.

  "You could. Trust me," the witch replied. "Now—what was that code phrase?"

  "The Snake of the East."

  "It would be something like that," she commented. She put her hand on the amulet and repeated the words. The amulet rotated them until they faced east, and began to tug them onward.

  Their pace increased until the wind began to whip at their clothing and their hair. Gazing straight ahead became unpleasant even through narrowed eyelids. Fox doubted even a falcon could fly so fast, not even when plunging toward its prey.

  They traveled in silence for an hour. It would take another hour to reach the eastern boundary of the realm, but even now the terrain was dominated by uncut woods and undrained wetlands.

  Her back was no longer chill against him, and he no longer numb. Fox found it impossible not to dwell upon the scent of her hair at the nape of her neck. He couldn't banish the memories of the times when he'd been pressed up against a woman in this way. Nor could he manage to stifle his body's response.

  "You compliment me, Sir Foxtread."

  "I am glad you take it in that spirit."

  "I used to live for the senses. Though sometimes it's hard to recall those times."

  "I've heard tales of the old you," he admitted.

  "You know so much of me, yet I so little of you," she said. "Have you been in the king's service long?"

  "Since I was eleven, Your Highness."

  "How did it happen?"

  He wondered if he could tell his story were he not pressed so close, his mouth next to her left ear.

  "My mother was a whore and then a washerwoman. The only father I knew was the tanner by the river whose bed she warmed. I ran off. I was tired of the beatings."

  "And did you kill the tanner later?"

  "Perhaps."

  "I was seven when my father's wizards began to shape me into what I am. Couldn't have done it if I had been much older. It's tricky enough magic as it is, and rare enough to find a vessel able to receive it at any age. As it was, it took twenty years."

  "The first success in two centuries," he said.

  "Told you about that, did they?"

  "Yes."

  "Did they tell you I chose it?"

  "I don't see how that could be true. As you say, you were only seven."

  "But I was asked, and I willingly swore to do my part. It is quite a thing, for a female to be able to defend the realm."

  "And you have defended the realm, Your Highness. Many times."

  "True. But it never meant as much as I imagined. Not after the first year."

  Fox didn't reply. What could he say?

  "How many men have you killed, Sir Foxtread?"

  "That's hard to say. Even when I was a boy they had me running through the battlefields hamstringing the horses of the enemy knights and then thrusting my stiletto into the eyeslits of any who fell to the ground. There were many battles. It was just after your brother became king. You remember the wars of expansion."

  "But everyone you killed, you killed close up. You could have kept a tally, if it had been your way."

  "I suppose I could have."

  "I could not possibly say how many have died as a result of my doings," she said in a murmur so soft the wind almost stole the words away. "I have floated over battlefields and returned to tell the commanders which enemy flank was vulnerable. I have dropped naptha inside castles and babies and chambermaids have burned along with the guards."

  "Best not to dwell on this, Your Highness."

  "How do you bear it? Speaking as one killer to another, how do you do it?"

  "There was no purpose to the life I was leading as a tanner's stepson. Now there is."

  "Is it as simple as tha
t?"

  "I keep it simple, Your Highness. I am the king's poison. I am his garrotte. Any time I am sent out on his business, I may die, so life becomes keen. Right now, when I look down and see how far we are from the treetops, my heart pounds. I feel the flow of blood behind my ears. I know I'm alive."

  "And you do not drink."

  "No. It would dull the keenness."

  "We are made of different stuff, Sir Foxtread."

  "I'm afraid so."

  They said not one more word more as they crossed into the Lakelands. The homesteads and crossroads communities were invisible to them, the late hour having caused lamps and cookfires to be extinguished, save for a wharf lantern or two left to show the way home to fisherman out in their boats.

  Finally they were out over the largest lake of all. Their destination was the keep on the far side. Fox wondered if his intended victim had any inkling of the danger he was in. The rebel had chosen to bide his time in what must have seemed to be an unusually secure stronghold. And so it had been every other time he had taken shelter there. But that was before a spy had succeeded in hiding a lodestone within it.

  The silhouette of the keep was looming large when their speed finally eased. They coasted to a halt so gentle the amulet did not even make a noise when it touched the lodestone.

  Fox evaluated their position. The spy had done well for them. They were dangling high on the lakeside wall of the fortress, shadowed even from the glow of the newly-risen quarter moon. From this spot the drop was straight down ten stories to the water. The guards had small reason to fear infiltration from this approach. Though Fox and the witch were only a dozen feet below the parapet, they would not be seen.

  Fox listened intently, as only someone trained in his art could listen. No one was walking along the battlement. No one was standing in wait, breathing. He uncoiled his rope and soon his noose settled over the nearest merlon. No one shouted an alarm. No one rushed up to cut the rope. He pulled the line taut and wrapped the free end around his hand three times.

  Buckle by buckle, slowly so as to make no noise, he released the straps that bound him to the witch. And then he peeled free of her.

  As his chest and abdomen lost contact with the skin of her back, the enchantment ceased to have its effect upon him. As she bobbed up a little higher, freed of his weight, he felt the world trying to draw him downward into a plunge, a death he thwarted by his firm grip on the rope, by the support of a tiny ledge beneath one boot, and by the strength of his arm.