Bradley, Marion Zimmer - SSC 03 (17 page)

 
          
Afterward
—
and for years, all those who heard often spoke of it
—
no one could remember what song was sung, though to
everyone it sounded familiar, so that every hearer was sure it was a song they
had heard at their mother's knee. To everyone it called, in the voice of
husband or lover or child or wife, the voice of the one most loved. One old man
said, with tears in his eyes, that he had heard his mother singing him to sleep
with an old lullaby he had not heard in more than half a century. And at last, even
the man who sat by the fire, clothes unkempt and stinking, hair rough and
tangled, and his eyes lost in another world, slowly raised his head and turned
to listen to the voice of Lythande, soft contralto or tenor; neutral, sexless,
yet holding all the sweetness of either sex. Lythande sang of the simple things
of the world, of sunlight and rain and wind, of the voices of children, of
grass and wind and harvest and the silences of dawn and twilight. Then, the
tempo quickening a little, she sang of home and fireside, where the children
gathered in the evening, calling to their fathers to come home from the sea.
And at last, the soft voice deepening and growing quieter so that the listeners
had to lean forward to hear it, yet every whispered note clearly audible even
to the rafters of the inn, Lythande sang of love.

 
          
And
the eyes of every man widened, and the cheek of every woman reddened to a
blush, yet to the innocent children there, every word was innocent as a mother's
kiss on their cheek.

 
          
And
when the song fell silent, the man by the fire-side raised his head and brushed
the tears from his eyes.

 
          
"Mhari,
lass," he said hoarsely, "where are ye
—
ye
and the babes
—
why, ha' I been sitting here
the daylong and not out to the fishing? Why, lass, ye're crying, what ails the
girl?" And he drew her to his knee and kissed her, and his face changed,
and he shook his head, bewildered.

 
          
"Why,
I dreamed
—
I dreamed
—
" His face contorted, but the woman drew his head down
on her breast, and she, too, was weeping.

 
          
"Don't
think of it,
goodman
, ye' were enchanted, but by the
mercy of the gods and this good wizard here, ye're safe home and yourself
again. ..."

 
          
He
rose
, his hands straying to his uncombed hair and
unshaven chin.
"How long?
Aye, what devil's magic
kept me here? And"
—
he looked around, seeing
Lythande laying the lute in the case
—
"what
brought me back? I owe
ye
gratitude, Lord
Wizard," he said. "All my poor house may offer is at your
command." His voice held the dignity of a poor workingman, and Lythande
bent graciously to acknowledge it.

 
          
"I
will take
a lodging
for the night, and a meal served
in private in my room, no more." And though both the fisherman and his
wife pressed Lythande to accept the ring and other gifts, even to the profits
of a year's fishing, the wizard would accept nothing more.

 
          
But
the others in the room crowded near, clamoring.

 
          
"No
such magic has ever been seen in these parts! Surely you can free us, with your
magic, from this evil wizardry! We beg you, we are at your mercy
—
we have nothing worthy of you, but such as we can, we will
give. ..."

 
          
Lythande
listened, impassive, to the pleading. It was to be expected; magic had been
demonstrated, and knowing what it could do, they were greedy for more. Yet it
was not greed alone. Their lives and their livelihood were at stake. These poor
folk could not continue to live by the fishing if the mermaid continued to lure
them onto the rocks, to be wrecked or eaten by sea-monsters, or, if they came
safe and alive to their homes, to live on rapt away by the memory.

 
          
Yet
what reason could this mermaid have for her evildoing? Lythande was well
acquainted with the laws of magic, and magical things did not exercise their
powers only out of a desire to make mischief among men. Why, after all, had
this mermaid come to sing and enchant these simple shore folk? What could her
purpose be?

 
          
"I
will have a meal served in private, that I may consider this," the
magician said, "and tomorrow I will speak with everyone in the village who
has heard this creature's song or looked upon her. And then I will decide
whether my magic can do anything for you.
Further than that I
will not go."

 
          
When
the woman had departed, leaving the tray of food, Lythande locked and
double-locked the door of the.
room
behind her. A fine
baked fish lay on a clean white napkin
—
Lythande
suspected it was the best of the meager catch brought in by the young girls,
which alone kept the village from starving. The fish was seasoned with
fragrant herbs, and there was a hot, coarse loaf of maize-bread, with butter
and cream, and a dish of sweet boiled seaweed on the tray.

 
          
First
Lythande cast about the room, the Blue Star blazing between the narrow brows,
seeking hidden spyholes or magical traps. Eternal vigilance was the price of
safety for any Adept of the Blue Star, even in a village as isolated as this
one. It was not likely that some enemy had trailed Lythande here, nor prearranged
a trap, but stranger things had happened in the Adept's long life.

 
          
But
the room was nowhere overlooked and seemed impregnable, so that at last
Lythande was free to take off the voluminous mage-robe and even to ungird the
belt with the two swords, and draw off the soft dyed-leather boots. So
revealed, Lythande presented still the outward appearance of a slender,
beardless man, tall and strongly framed and sexless; yet, free of observation,
Lythande was revealed as what she was; a woman. Yet a woman who might never be
known to be so in the sight of any living man.

 
          
A masquerade that had become truth; for into the
Temple
of the
Pilgrim-Adepts, Lythande alone in all their long history had successfully
penetrated in male disguise.
Not till the Blue Star already shone between her brows,
symbol and sign of Adepthood, had she been discovered and exposed; and by then
she was sacrosanct, bearing their innermost secrets. And then the Master of the
Pilgrim-Adepts had laid on her the doom she still bore.

 
          
"So
be it; be then in truth what you have chosen to seem. Till Law and Chaos meet
in that Final Battle where all things must die, be what you have pretended; for
on that day when any Pilgrim-Adept save myself shall proclaim your true sex, on
that day is your power forfeit and you may be slain."

 
          
So
together with all the vows that fenced about the power of a Pilgrim-Adept,
Lythande bore this burden as well; that of concealing her true sex to the end
of the world.

 
          
She
was not, of course, the only Adept heavily burdened with a
geas;
every
Adept of the Blue Star bore some such Secret in whose concealment, even from
other Adepts of the Order, lay all his magic and all his strength. Lythande
might even have a woman confidante, if she could find one she could trust with
her life and her powers.

 
          
The
minstrel-Adept ate the fish, and nibbled at the boiled seaweed,
  which
was  not to her taste.  The maize
bread, well wrapped against grease, found its way into the pockets of the
mage-robe, against some time when she might not be able to manage privacy for a
meal and must snatch a concealed bite as she traveled.

 
          
This
done, she drew from a small pouch at her waist a quantity of herbs that had no
magical properties whatever (unless the property of bringing relaxation and
peace to the weary can be counted magical), rolled them into a narrow tube, and
set them alight with a spark blazing from the ring she bore. She inhaled
deeply, leaned back with her narrow feet stretched out to the fire, for the
sea-wind was damp and cold, and considered.

 
          
Did
she wish, for the prestige of the Order, and the pride of a Pilgrim-Adept, to
go out against a mermaid?

 
          
Powerful
as was the magic of the Blue Star, Lythande knew that somewhere beneath the
world of the Twin Suns, a magic might lie next to which a Pilgrim-Adept's
powers were mere hearth-magic and trumperies. There were moments when she
wearied,
indeed, of her long life of concealment and felt
she would welcome death, more especially if it came in honorable battle. But
these were brief moods of the night, and always when day came, she wakened with
renewed curiosity about all the new adventures that might lie around the next
bend in the road. She had no wish to cut it short in futile striving against an
unknown enemy.

 
          
Her
music had indeed recalled the enchanted man to
himself
.
Did this mean her magic was stronger than that of the mermaid? Probably not;
she had needed only to break through the magical focus of the man's attention,
to remind him of the beauty of the world he had forgotten. Then, hearing again,
his mind had chosen that real beauty over the false beauty of the enchantment,
for beneath the magic that, held him entranced, the mind of the man must have
been already in despair, struggling to break free.
A simple
magic and nothing to give overconfidence in her strength against the unknown
magic of mermaids.

 
          
She
wrapped herself in the mage-robe and laid herself down to sleep, halfway
inclined to rise before dawn and be far away before anyone in the village was
astir. What were the troubles of a fishing village to her? Already she had
given them a gift of magic, restoring the innkeeper's husband to himself; what
else did she owe them?

 
          
Yet,
a few minutes before the rising of the pale face of Keth, she woke knowing she
would remain. Was it only the challenge of testing an unknown magic
against her own
? Or had the helplessness of these people
touched her heart?

 
          
Most
likely, Lythande thought with a cynical smile, it was her own wish to see a new
magic. In the years she had wandered under the eyes of Keth and Reth, she had
seen many magics, and most were simple and almost mechanical, set once in
motion and kept going by something not much better than inertia.

 
          
Once,
she remembered, she had encountered a haunted oak grove, with a legend of a
dryad spirit who seduced all male passersby. It had proved to be no more than
an echo of a dryad's wrath when spurned by a man she had tried and failed to
seduce; her rage and counterspell had persisted more than forty seasons, even
when the dryad's tree had fallen, lightning-struck, and withered. The remnants
of the spell had lingered till it was no more than an empty grove where women
took their reluctant lovers, that the leftover powers of the angry dryad might
arouse at least a little lust. Lythande, despite the pleas of the women fearing
to lose their husbands to the power of the spell, had not chosen to meddle; the
last she heard, the place had acquired a pleasant reputation for restoring
potency, at least for a night, to any man who slept there.

           
The village was already astir.
Lythande went out into the reddening sunrise, where the fishermen gathered from
habit, though they were not dragging down their boats to the edge of the tide.
Seeing Lythande, they left the boats and crowded around.

 
          
"Say,
wizard, will you help us or no?"

 
          
"I
have not yet decided," said Lythande. "First I must speak with
everyone in the village who has encountered the creature."

 
          
"Ye
can't do that," said one old man with a fierce grin,
"
'less
ye can walk down into the Sea-God's lockup an' question them down
there! Or maybe wizards can do that, too?"

 
          
Rebuked,
Lythande wondered if she were taking their predicament too lightly. To her,
perhaps, it was challenge and curiosity; to these folk it was their lives and
their livelihood, their very survival at stake.