Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXV Read online

  "Indeed," said the woman. "If your father protects you so well here, how is it he allowed me to inflict so much damage?"

  "Hey, I didn't say I couldn't be hurt," said Asha. "But I swear by all the gods I know, you will not kill me in this place."

  Well, that at least was true; Asha struggled to try and remember what she had seen in the Fates' room that day so long ago, but she was hurting too much to concentrate. It hadn't occurred her to avoid it, but recognize what it wasn't. She knew that she did not die on any altar, but the rest of it was a mystery, even to her.

  "Wait here—I'll find something to splint your legs and we'll be on our way," said the priestess.

  "Wait here—oh yeah, that's funny!" Asha called after her. "Okay, Trang, can I talk to you personally?"

  The blindfold was lifted to reveal a misshapen dark figure, looming ominously and oozing a foul-smelling greyish slime.

  "I know you," it said, grinning to display rows of shark-like teeth. "I've heard stories about you from the outbound gods."

  "Out—outbound?" said Asha. "What does that mean?"

  "Ah, it's dusk and as day moves into night, so the era of the pantheons of light move to give way to the pantheons of the dark," Trang explained.

  "Okay, so what does that mean, exactly?" said Asha, frowning.

  "It means that the earth is to be plunged into my dark rule for the next three thousand years," said Trang with an ominous chortle.

  "I mean to me," said Asha, impatiently.

  "Of course," said Trang, still laughing; it was not a pleasant sound. "Clearly, your 'arrangement' with the various deities of the other pantheon will have to be... ah, re-negotiated."

  "Yeah, right," said Asha. "Listen, I think I'm just going to retire, so if you'll just tell... er, what's 'er name to let me go, I'll be on my way."

  Trang wasn't laughing anymore.

  "I can't do that," he said.

  "Yeah, the whole thirteenth sacrifice setting you loose upon the world thing," said Asha, sympathetically. "I'm sure your girl is so devoted to you, she would be willing sacrifice herself to accomplish your manifestation of evil on the earth."

  "Self-sacrifice offers a precedent counter to what we're trying to achieve here," said Trang.

  "Well, just kill her then," said Asha.

  Trang seemed to consider it for a moment, then looked at Asha.

  "Why don't you do it?" he said, as if just thinking of it.

  "No, I don't kill people," she said.

  "Oh, why not?" said Trang. "Listen, one of you has to die to let me out there and it isn't going to be you, I know—I peeked at the Fates' Thread, too—so just off her and be done with it. Come on—she hurt you. Aren't you just aching for revenge?"

  "Not really, no," said Asha with a shrug. "I can't afford to hold grudges in my line of work."

  "Hm, no I suppose not," said Trang. "Well, how about this—you kill her and when I am fully in the world, I will reward you with power and riches so that you need never be sacrificed again."

  "No, the whole evil thing just isn't me. Petty fraud, sure, but real evil? I just don't feel it. If you want in, you'll have to kill your minion yourself or wait for her to find another victim," said Asha.

  "No, you see there isn't time for that," said Trang. "I need innocent blood spilt on this altar before sundown or I have to wait another three thousand years. I can't do it myself because I am not yet fully in this world."

  "Yeah, that's a problem," said Asha. "But not mine, fortunately. I'm just going to hobble away before she gets back and starts with the torturing again—by the way, she's really good at it. You really know how to pick 'em."

  "I thought your legs were broken!" said Trang.

  "Petty fraud—which is what I am good at—is most successful when perpetrated upon those who are doing wrong themselves," said Asha, who had after years of experience, finally successfully loosed her bonds and swung her legs off the stone altar.

  She grinned at the thinning apparition of the evil god, found her pack and purse and limped off into the forest. Her first stop was a shrine to the goddess who maintained this forest to warn her about Trang. She knelt in front of the shrine and called to the goddess.

  "What is it?" asked the goddess, impatiently.

  "Well, I just thought I'd warn you," said Asha, a little testy at the 'tude she was being given when she was just trying to do them a favour. "There's a dark god looking for a thirteenth maiden sacrifice to broach the wards around the world."

  "Yeah, I heard," said the goddess.

  "You don't look too concerned," said Asha.

  "Why should I?" asked the goddess.

  Asha sighed in relief.

  "So the gods have things under control," said Asha. "Battle plan in place, the works, huh?"

  "Battle plan? For what?" asked the goddess with a yawn.

  "Excuse me, am I boring you with talk of a coup? Darkness, death, and destruction—not to mention an unhealthy dose of evil—taking over the world?" asked Asha.

  "Oh, don't be ridiculous," said the goddess, laughing merrily. "It's just the millennial shift change."

  "What does that mean?" asked Asha.

  "Well, every three thousand years or so, the pantheon changes," said the goddess. "It helps to keep the balance. Oh, at first all the new gods claim to be evil, but eventually things work themselves out and 'good' reasserts itself."

  "I don't like where this is going," said Asha. "How long is 'eventually'?"

  "A thousand years or so," said the goddess with a shrug. "Oh, you'll be an old woman before the shift change is complete, trust me—there are millions of things to do before we're done."

  "But still, what about those who aren't? They have to live through all the darkness and destruction," said Asha.

  "And how does this concern me?" asked the goddess. "Run along now, little mortal—you're boring me."

  Asha shrugged and walked on, but it bothered her. She felt the tickling of her conscience, long dormant and decided that, if the shift change was inevitable, there was nothing that she could do about it. If it wasn't, however, she knew she needed to act to stop it.

  "There is only one way to find out if it can be stopped," she said and turned direction to head home.

  Her mother greeted her with strained patience.

  "How long will you be here, dear?" she asked through clenched teeth.

  "Gee, Mom, glad to see you, too," said Asha, dropping her pack on the cot in her old room in the Temple of the Fates.

  "Well?" asked her mother again.

  "As long as it takes to stop the end of the world, okay?" Asha snapped and stalked off to the sanctuary.

  "Where are you going?" her mother said in a loud whisper, following her.

  "I need to talk with Them," said Asha.

  "No! I forbid it," said her mother the priestess, barring the special door to the Fates' realm. "Once was enough. Your blatant disrespect for the gods is not unknown and the fact that you can converse with them with such ease in truly an embarrassment, especially given your 'profession'!"

  "Hey, I perform a valuable service! Do you know how many virgins' lives I have saved?" said Asha.

  Her mother's eyes widened in horror as Asha pushed past her and stepped into that strange space that was not in this world and yet controlled it. There stood the three Sisters, spinning and measuring and snipping. The coils of thread lay in huge piles around the room. They did not look up from their work as Asha approached. She saw the interweaving of some dark threads into the lighter ones.

  "So, it has begun," she said, softly.

  "Aye, the change begins," said the Sisters in unison.

  "Can it be stopped?" asked Asha.

  "Of course," said the Sisters. "It is cloth, malleable, not stone. But the outbound gods are weary; they are ready to set down their burdens and go home from their three thousand year-long work day."

  "Well, okay, I can understand that," said Asha, frowning. "But do they have to be replaced with all e
vil gods?"

  "Hm, some may be willing to work a double shift," said the Sisters. "We could alternate the dark and light threads and temper the coming evil times for you mortals."

  "Would you?" asked Asha.

  "Of course, we would require a sacrifice," said the Sisters. "A permanent sacrifice, that is, not your usual."

  Asha thought for a moment and Trang's words came back to her, Self-sacrifice offers a precedent counter to what we're trying to achieve here. She thought about all of the innocent people she had saved from unnecessary death and decided that her life had been important.

  "The professional sacrifice hesitates at the real thing," said the Sisters.

  "Of course I'll do it, " said Asha, gravely. "Will it hurt?"

  "It isn't that kind of sacrifice," said the Sisters. "We, too weary of the work and need some time to rest and relax, though not a whole three thousand years."

  "O—okay, I can see where this is going," said Asha, a little more hopefully.

  "Besides, you are mortal—you could not last three thousand years," said the youngest with a giggle.

  "Clotho, hush," said the other two.

  "You will take Clotho's place first, then Lachesis, then mine," said Atropos, the eldest.

  "So be it, " said Asha, quietly.

  "Oh, don't be so sad," said Clotho.

  "When you have finished your service to us, you will be released to see what your hands have created on the earth you love so much," said Atropos, chuckling.

  But I'll be too old to enjoy any of them, thought Asha.

  Still, the agreement was made and she took her place at the spinning wheel. Clotho showed her how to spin the material which was not wool or cotton or linen but was the silvery stuff from which life itself was created. Before she knew it, it was her turn to measure. Clotho returned to her spindle and Lachesis showed her the measure of humankind. Often, it broke Asha's heart to hand the short threads to Atropos, but more often, the threads were long and well-lived. Finally, Atropos handed her the huge, heavy shears and Asha took her turn handing out destiny.

  At last, Asha was finished. She bowed to the Fates and started towards the door.

  "You cannot go back to your old life," said the three Sisters.

  "Why not? There are a few new gods who I haven't—" Asha began.

  "No, it has been three hundred years since you walked through that door," said the Sisters.

  "Then how am I still alive?" asked Asha.

  "You have handled pure life force," said Clotho. "You are not quite immortal, but you will live a long life."

  "Call it a gift of gratitude for your service to us," said Atropos.

  "So what do I do now?" asked Asha.

  "You could stay here and join us?" suggested Lachesis, hopefully.

  Asha shook her head.

  "I want to see what changes I made in the world," said Asha. "But if I live as long as you say, I'll come back and spell you all again."

  "That could be useful," said Atropos. "Return to us when the gods change again so that we may temper that change as we did before."

  Asha agreed, and so it was that three thousand years later, she arrived back at the Temple of the Fates, only the Temple was gone. In its place was a shopping mall, but Asha knew where the door was and went through, greeting the Sisters.

  "The new gods are commerce and technology," she complained. "Darkness is indeed upon us. Barely anyone remembers who you are! I might just as well have let Trang and the others have their way."

  The Sisters nodded gravely.

  "We have felt the lack of faith and the fading of the other pantheons," they said. "Only we remain."

  "The stuff of life," said Asha, remembering. "I am tired. If only there was an afterlife I could still believe in, I would beg you, dear Atropos, to snip my thread and send me there!"

  "There is an alternative," said Lachesis.

  "Yes, we could send you back," said Clotho.

  "But then what would happen to all the lives of those we saved by averting the evil gods' take over?" asked Asha.

  "They would be no worse off—it would, after all by now be time for the shift again and the old gods would be coming back," said Atropos.

  "How would you do that?" asked Asha.

  "Like this," said Clotho, taking up Asha's thread and unraveling that last three thousand or so years.

  Asha felt herself moving backwards through time until she again found herself leaving Trang's altar. Briefly, she considered warning the other gods, but thought better of it.

  "They will probably welcome the break, anyway," she said to herself, whistling as she walked to the next town to offer her services.

  The Sundered Star

  K.D. Wentworth

  Although a lot of the stories I read each year lose me on the first page—or sometimes on the first paragraph—many of them follow MZB's oft-repeated advice to grab the reader by the throat at the beginning and not let go until the end. Even so, sometimes I'll reach the end of the story and find that I don't like the way it turned out. When I reached the end of this story, however, I found myself saying "wow!" Of course, both Marion and I like Ms. Wentworth's work; we've bought two stories from her for Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine and three for SWORD & SORCERESS.

  K.D. Wentworth has since sold more than eighty pieces of short fiction to such markets as F&SF, Hitchcock's, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, WITCH WAY TO THE MALL, and RETURN TO THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Four of her stories have been Nebula Award Finalists for Short Fiction. Currently, she has eight novels in print, the most recent being THE COURSE OF EMPIRE and CRUCIBLE OF EMPIRE, both written with Eric Flint and published by Baen. She lives in Tulsa with her husband and a combined total of one hundred eighty pounds of dog (Akita + Siberian "Hussy") and is working on another new novel with Flint. She can be found on the web at http://www.kdwentworth.com.

  Saelil sat on her heels on an overlooking bluff and gazed down into the wind-ruffled depths of the mountain lake. Down there in the cold blue, a fat white star spun, fizzing, throwing off red/orange/green sparks. Somehow, a bit of the sky itself had come to rest up here in the mountain heights.

  The wind whipped down off the crags and tangled Saelil's long red hair around her face. With an impatient gesture, she knotted it back out of her way. A week ago, she had been commissioned to capture this blazing entity and transport it back down to the lowlands for the Kalip's spoiled daughter. Her sword hung in its scabbard on her back, well honed and deadly—and perfectly useless for the task at hand. From the looks of it, there was no one down there in the water to fight.

  Saelil knew she was the fifth to be recruited for this task. Only one of the first four, who were all male, had returned, and he, a fierce brawny black-haired lad of twenty-six, had reportedly burst into flames and burned to charcoal at the Kalip's feet, raving all the while about "fire" inside his head.

  Then Saelil, a mercenary who had survived several encounters with magick in the course of her career, had been summoned to a private audience before the Kalip. "My daughter, Linana, comes of age in the Month of Purling Trees," the Lord of the Realm said, lounging back in his great carved chair and drumming his fingers on the armrest.

  He was a burly broad-shouldered man, his hair dark gold, now shot with gray, his brow strong. The two of them had danced under the covers a few times when they both were much younger and he had not yet slain his two older brothers. "At that time, she must wed her betrothed, Murel of the Corlino Reaches, but refuses unless I first gift her with some great magick."

  Great magicks, Saelil knew, were few and far between. One might search for a lifetime and never so much as glimpse the slightest bit of otherworldly activity. "Is that wise, Kalip?" she said, both hands resting upon her sword's pommel, gazing up at his once handsome face. "In the stories, magick is as apt to turn back upon the user as not."

  "She craves independence," he said, crinkling his hazel eyes in that way Saelil well remembered. "She insists that, if I give her a
great working, she will still be a person of importance even once she is wed and living in another man's house."

  "If she isn't already of worth, then she never will be, no matter what you give her or who she weds." Saelil scratched a still-healing scar on her forearm from her last run through the mountains.

  His face stiffened with anger, then he sighed. "Ah, Saelil, I have missed you." He stretched out an inviting hand.

  She only laughed, uneasy, but loathe to reveal it. Aerit Mallan Reen, now Kalip of the entire Jontinine Frontier, had always been swift to exploit weakness of any sort. "No, you haven't, you old he-goat," she said, "and I haven't missed you either."

  Then he laughed too, dropping his hand. "At least you always amused me. What happened to us?"

  "We came to our senses," she said evenly. "Things being what they are." She studied his face, once familiar but no more. "So you want a star brought back out of the lake, even though four men have already died trying and having it will do no good at all?"

  "I do—and you will bring it." He sat back in his ornate chair, Aerit the winsome youth fading, suddenly all Kalip again. "If raw male brute strength cannot accomplish the deed, then we will try the wiles of a woman." His brows rose. "You do still have family in the city, I seem to recall, two younger brothers."

  And nieces and nephews, the oldest only eleven. Her heart seized like a broken bit of clockwork.

  "I shall have your family brought here as my guests—until, and if, you return."

  "This task will cost you gold," she said, her mouth gone sour. "I don't trade in—other—currency anymore."

  "Then gold you shall have," he said, "if you survive."

  "I'll go and take a look," she said. "No promises."

  "I want that star." His voice was low now and lethal, reminding her of why she quit coming to his bed. "If you don't come back with it, then let it be because you are dead."

  For a second, she considered rounding up her family and fleeing over the mountain pass into the next kingdom, but the Kalip's reach was long and her pride was touched. If she could retrieve a star when others, all male, had already failed, her reputation would be made for life.