Bradley, Marion Zimmer - SSC 03 (9 page)

 
          
"Pretty
one, too," said the first man. "Did you get your turn before she
died?"

 
          
"She
was too far gone," Lythande said truthfully. "But she is a
countrywoman of mine, and I promised her I would see her decently buried."
A hand went into the mage-robe and came out with a glint of gold. "Where
do I arrange for it?"

 
          
"I
hear the watchmen," said one man, less drunk than his companions, and
Lythande, too, could hear the ringing of boots on stone, the clash of pikes.
"For that kind of gold, you could have half the city buried, and if there
weren't enough corpses, I'd make you a few more myself."

 
          
Lythande
flung the drunk some coins. "Get her buried, then, and that carrion with
her."

 
          
"I'll
see to it," said the least drunk, "and not even toss you a coin for
that fine sword of hers; you can take it to her kinfolk."

 
          
Lythande
stared at the sword in her hand. She would have sworn she had laid it properly
across the dead woman's breast. Well, it had been a confusing half hour. She
bent and laid it on the lifeless breast. "Touch it not; it is a
larith
sword;
I dare not think what the Larithae would do to you, should they find you with
that
in your hand."

 
          
The
drunken men shrank back. "May I defile virgin goats if I touch it,"
said one of them, with a superstitious gesture. "But do you not fear the
curse?"

 
          
And
now she was confused enough that she had picked up the
larith
blade
again. This time she put it carefully down across the Laritha's body and spoke
the words of an unbinding-spell in case the dying woman's gesture had somehow
sought to bind that sword to her. Then she moved into the shadows of the street
in that noiseless and unseen way that often caused people to swear, truthfully,
that they had seen Lythande appearing or disappearing into thin air. She
looked on from the shadows until the watchmen had come, cursing, and dragged
away the bodies for burial. In this city, they knew little of the Goddess
Larith and her worship, and Lythande thought, conscience-stricken, that she
should have seen to it that the woman and her ravishers were not buried in the
same grave.
Well,
and what if they were? They were all
dead, and might await the Last Battle against Chaos together; they could have
no further care for what befell their corpses, or if they did, they could tell
it to whatever judges awaited them on the far side of death's gate.

 
          
This
story is not concerned with the business that had brought Lythande to Old
Gandrin, but when it was completed the next day, and the mercenary-magician
emerged from a certain house in the Merchants' Quarter, stowing more coins
into the convenient folds of the mage-robe, and ruefully remembering the
depleted stocks of magical herbs and stones in the pouches and pockets stowed
in odd places about that mage-robe, Lythande, with a most unpleasant start,
found her fingers entangled with a strange object of metal tied about her
waist. It was the
larith
sword; and it was, moreover, tied there with a
strange knot that gave her fingers some little trouble to untie, and was
certainly not her own work!

 
          
"Chaos
and hellfire!" swore Lythande. "There is more to
larith
magic
than I ever thought!"

 
          
That
damnable impulse that had prompted her to meddle in somebody else's business
had now, it seemed, saddled her with someone else's magic. Furthermore, her
unbinding-spell had not worked. Now she must make strong magic that would not
fail; and first she must find herself a safe place to do it.

 
          
In
Old Gandrin she had no safe-house established, and the business that had
brought her here, though important and well paid, was not of the kind that
makes many friends or incurs much gratitude. She had been gifted past what she
had asked for her services; but should Lythande present herself at that same
door where she had worked spells to thrust out ghosts and haunts, she did not
deceive herself that she would receive much welcome. What, then, to do? A
Pilgrim Adept did not make magic in the street like a wandering juggler!

 
          
A common tavern?
Some shelter, indeed, she must find before
the burning eye of Reth sank below the horizon; she was carrying much gold, and
had no wish to defend it in the night-streets of the Thieves' Quarter. She must
also replenish her stocks of magical herbs, and also find a place to rest, and
eat, and drink, before she set off northward to the shrine of the Goddess as
Larith. . . .

 
          
Lythande
cursed aloud, so angrily that a passerby in the street turned and stared in
protest.
Northward to Larith?
Was that
forever-be-damned sorcerous sword beginning to work on her very thoughts? This
was strong magic; but she would not go to Larith, no, by the Final Battle, she
would
not
go northward, but south, and nowhere near that accursed shrine
of the Larithae!
Not while there is magic left in the arsenal of a Pilgrim
Adept, 1 will not!

 
          
In
the market, moving noiselessly in the concealment of the mage-robe, she found a
stall where magical herbs were for sale, and bartered briefly for them;
briefly, because the law of magic states that whatever is wanted for the making
of magic must be bought without haggling, gold being no more than dross at the
service of magical arts. Yet, Lythande mused darkly, that knowledge had
evidently become common among herb-sellers and spell-candlers of the Gandrin
market, and as a result their prices had gone from the merely outrageous to the
unthinkable. Lythande remonstrated briefly with a woman at one of these stalls.

 
          
"
Come,
come, four Thirds for a handful of darkleaf?"

 
          
"And
how am I to know that when ye give me gold, ye havena' spelled it from copper
or worse?" demanded the herb-seller. "Last moon I sold one of your
Order a full quartern of dreamroot and bloodleaf, full cured by a fire o' hazel
and spellroot, and that defiler of virgin goats paid me wi' two rounds of gold
—
he said. But when the moon changed, I looked at 'em, and it
was no more than a handful of barley stuck together
wi
'
spellroot and smelling worse than the devil's farts! I take that risk into
account when I set my prices, magician!"

 
          
"Such
folk bring disrepute on the name of the magician," Lythande agreed
gravely, but secretly wished she knew that spell. There were dishonest
innkeepers who would be better paid in barley grains; in fact, the grain would
be worth more than their services! The spell-candler was looking at Lythande as
if she had more to say, and Lythande raised inquiring eyebrows.

 
          
"I'd
give you the stuff for half if you'd show me a spell to tell true gold from
false, magician."

 
          
Lythande
looked round, and on a nearby stall saw the crystals she wanted. She picked up
one of them.

 
          
"The
crystal called
blue zeth
is a touchstone of magic," Lythande said.
"False gold will not have a true gold shimmer; and other things spelled to
look like gold will show what they are, but only if you blink thrice and look
between the second and third blink. That bracelet on your arm, good woman
—
"

 
          
The
woman slid the bracelet down over her plump hand; Lythande took it up and
looked through the
blue zeth
crystal.

 
          
"As
you can clearly see," she said, "
this
bracelet is
—
" and to her surprise,
concluded
—
"false gold; pot-metal
gilded."

 
          
The
woman squinted, blinked at the bracelet. "Why, that defiler of virgin
goats," she howled. "I will kick his arse from here to the river! Him
and his tales of his uncle the goldsmith
—
"

 
          
Lythande
restrained a smile, though the corners of her lips twitched. "Have I
created trouble with husband or lover, O good woman?"

 
          
"Only
that he'd like to be, I make no doubt," muttered the woman, throwing the
cheap bracelet down with contempt.

 
          
"Look
at something I know to be true gold, then," Lythande said, and picked up
one of the coins she had given the woman. "True gold will look like
this
—
" And at her wave, the woman bent to look at the golden
shimmer of the coin. "What is
not
gold will take on the blue color
of the
zeth
crystal, or"
—
she
took up a copper, gestured, and the copper shone with a deceptive gold luster;
she thrust it under the crystal
—
"if you blink three
times and look between the second and third blink, you can tell what it is
really made of."

 
          
Delighted,
the stallkeeper bought a handful of
blue zeth
crystals at the
neighboring stall. "Take the herbs, then, gift for gift," she said,
then
asked suspiciously, "What else will you ask me for
this spell? For it is truly priceless
—
"

 
          
"Priceless,
indeed," Lythande agreed. "I ask only that you tell the spell to
three other persons, and exact
a promise that each person to
whom it is told tell
three others. Dishonest magicians bring evil repute
—
and then it is hard for an honest one to make a
living."

 
          
And,
of course, what nine market women knew would soon be known everywhere in the
city. The sellers of
blue zeth
would profit, but not beyond their merits.

 
          
"Yet
the magicians of the Blue Star are honest, so far as I've had dealings with
'em," the woman said, putting away the
blue zeth
crystals into a
capacious and not-very-clean pocket. "I got decent gold from the one who
bought spellroot from me last New Moon."

 
          
Lythande
froze and went very still, but the Blue Star on the browless forehead began to
sparkle slightly and glow. "Know you his name? I knew not that a brother
of my Order had been within Old Gandrin this season."

 
          
It
meant nothing, of course. But, like all Pilgrim Adepts, Lythande was a
solitary, and would have preferred that what she did in Old Gandrin should not
b« spied on by another. And it lent urgency to her errand; above all, she must
not be seen with the
larith
sword, lest the secret of her sex become
known; it was not well known within Gandrin
—
for
the Larithae seldom came so far south
—
but
in the North it was known that only a woman might touch, handle, or wield a
larith
sword.

 
          
"Upon
reflection," she said, "I have done you, as you say, a priceless
service; do you one for me in return."

 
          
The
woman hesitated for a moment, and Lythande for one did not blame her. It is
not, as a general
rule,
wise to entangle oneself in
the private affairs of wizards, and certainly not when that wizard glows with
lightning flash of the Blue Star. The woman glowered at the false gold bracelet
and muttered, "What is your need?"

 
          
"Direct
me to a safe lodging place this night
—
one
where I may make magic, and see to it that I do so unobserved."

 
          
The
woman said at last, grudgingly, "I am no tavern, and have no public-room
and no great kitchens for roasting meat. Yet now and again I let out my upper
chamber, if the tenant is sober and respectable. And my son
—
he's nineteen and like a bull about the "shoulders
—
he'll stand below
wi
' a cudgel and
keep away anyone who would spy. I'll gi' you that room for half o' gold."

 
          
A half?
That was more outrageous than the price she had set
on her baggin of spellroot. But now, of all times, Lythande dared not haggle.