Jirel of Joiry (2 page)

Upon the moss a naked girl was lying, gasping her life out behind the hands in which her face was buried. There was no mistaking the death-sound in that failing breath, although her body was unmarked. Hair of a strange green-gold pallor streamed over her bare white body, and by the fragility and
tenuosity
of that body
Jirel
knew that she could not be wholly human.

Above the dying girl a tall woman stood. And that woman was a magnet for
Jirel’s
fascinated eyes. She was generously curved, sleepy-eyed. Black hair bound her head sleekly, and her skin was like rich, dark, creamy velvet. A violet robe wrapped her carelessly, leaving arms and one curved shoulder bare, and her girdle was a snake of something like purple glass. It might have been carved from some vast jewel, save for its size and unbroken clarity. Her feet were thrust bare into silver sandals. But it was her face that held
Jirel’s
yellow gaze.

The sleepy eyes under heavily drooping lids were purple as gems, and the darkly crimson mouth curled in a smile so hateful that fury rushed up in
Jirel’s
heart as she watched. That lazy purple gaze dwelt aloofly upon the gasping girl on the moss. The woman was saying in a voice as rich and deep as thick-piled velvet,

“—nor will any other of the dryad folk presume to work forbidden magic in my woodlands for a long, long while to come. Your fate shall be a deadly example to them,
Irsla
. You dared too greatly. None who defy
Jarisme
live. Hear me,
Irsla
!”

The sobbing breath had slowed as the woman spoke, as if life were slipping fast from the dryad-girl on the moss; and as she realized it the speaker’s arm lifted and a finger of white fire leaped from her outstretched hand, stabbing the white body at her feet. And the girl
Irsla
started like one shocked back into life.

“Hear me out, dryad! Let your end be a warning to—”

The girl’s quickened breath slowed again as the white brilliance left her, and again the woman’s hand rose, again the light-blade stabbed. From behind her shielding hands the dryad gasped.

“Oh, mercy, mercy,
Jarisme
!
Let me die!”

“When I have finished.
Not before. Life and death are mine to command here, and I am not yet done with you. Your stolen magic—”

She paused, for
Irsla
had slumped once more upon the moss, breath scarcely stirring her. As
Jarisme’s
light-dealing hand rose for the third time
Jirel
leapt forward. Partly it was intuitive hatred of the lazy-eyed woman, partly revolt at this cat-and-mouse play with a dying girl for victim. She swung her arm in an arc that cleared the branches from her path, and called out in her clear, strong voice,

“Have done, woman! Let her die in peace.”

Slowly
Jarisme’s
purple eyes rose. They met
Jirel’s
hot yellow glare. Almost physical impact was in that first meeting of their eyes, and hatred flashed between them instantly, like the flash of blades—the instinctive hatred of total opposites, born enemies. Each stiffened subtly, as cats do in the instant before combat. But
Jirel
thought she saw in the purple gaze, behind all its kindling anger, a faint disquiet, a nameless uncertainty.

“Who are you?” asked
Jarisme
, very softly, very dangerously.

Something in that
unsureness
behind her angry eyes prompted
Jirel
to answer boldly.

“
Jirel
of
Joiry
.
I seek the wizard Giraud, who fled me here. Stop tormenting that wretched girl and tell me where to find him. I can make it worth your while.”

Her tone was imperiously mandatory, and behind
Jarisme’s
drooping lips an answering flare of anger lighted, almost drowning out that faint unease.

“You do not know me,” she observed, her voice very gentle. “I am the sorceress
Jarisme
, and high ruler over all this land. Did you think to buy me, then, earth-woman?”

Jirel
smiled her sweetest, most poisonous smile.

“You will forgive me,” she purred. “At the first glance at you I did not think your price could be high…”

A petty malice had inspired the speech, and
Jirel
was sorry as it left her lips, for she knew that the scorn which blazed up in
Jarisme’s
eyes was justified. The sorceress made a contemptuous gesture of dismissal.

“I shall waste no more of my time here,” she said. “Get back to your little lands,
Jirel
of
Joiry
, and tempt me no further.”

The purple gaze rested briefly on the motionless dryad at her feet, flicked
Jirel’s
hot eyes with a glance of scorn which yet did not wholly hide that curious uncertainty in its depths. One hand slid behind her, oddly as if she were seeking a door-latch in empty air. Then like a heat-shimmer the air danced about her, and in an instant she was gone.

Jirel
blinked. Her ears had deceived her as well as her eyes, she thought, for as the sorceress vanished a door closed softly somewhere. Yet look though she would, the green glade was empty, the violet air untroubled. No
Jarisme
anywhere—no door.
Jirel
shrugged after a moment’s bewilderment. She had met magic before.

A sound from the scarcely breathing girl upon the moss distracted her, and she dropped to her knees beside the dying dryad. There was no mark or wound upon her, yet
Jirel
knew that death could be only a matter of moments. And dimly she recalled that, so legend said, a tree-sprite never survived the death of its tree. Gently she turned the girl over, wondering if she were beyond help.

At the feel of those gentle hands the dryad’s lids quivered and rose. Brook-brown eyes looked up at
Jirel
, with green swimming in their deeps like leaf-reflections in a woodland pool.

“My thanks to you,” faltered the girl in a ghostly murmur. “But get you back to your home now—before
Jarisme’s
anger slays you.”

Jirel
shook her red head stubbornly.

“I must find Giraud first, and kill him, as I have sworn to do. But I will wait. Is there anything I can do?”

The green-reflecting eyes searched hers for a moment. The dryad must have read resolution there, for she shook her head a little.

“I must die—with my tree. But if you are determined—hear me. I owe you—a debt. There is a talisman—braided in my hair. When I—am dead—take it. It is
Jarisme’s
sign. All her subjects wear them. It will guide you to her—and to Giraud. He is ever beside her. I know. I think it was her anger at you—that made her forget to take it from me, after she had dealt me my death. But why she did not slay you—I do not know.
Jarisme
is quick—to kill. No matter—listen now. If you must have Giraud—you must take a risk that no one here—has ever taken—before. Break this talisman—at
Jarisme’s
feet. I do not know—what will happen then.
Something—very terrible.
It releases powers—even she can not control. It may—destroy you too. But—it is—a chance. May you—have—all good—”

The faltering voice failed.
Jirel
, bending her head, caught only meaningless murmurs that trailed away to nothing. The green-gold head dropped suddenly forward on her sustaining arm. Through the forest all about her went one long, quivering sigh, as if an intangible breeze ruffled the trees. Yet no leaves stirred.

Jirel
bent and kissed the dryad’s forehead, then laid her very gently back on the moss. And as she did so her hand in the masses of strangely colored hair came upon something sharp and hard. She remembered the talisman. It tingled in her fingers as she drew it out—an odd little jagged crystal sparkling with curious aliveness from the fire burning in its heart.

When she had risen to her feet, leaving the dead dryad lying upon the moss which seemed so perfectly her couch, she saw that the inner brilliance streaming in its wedge-shaped pattern through the crystal was pointing a quivering apex forward and to the right.
Irsla
had said it would guide her. Experimentally she twisted her hand to the left. Yes, the shaking light shifted within the crystal, pointing always toward the right, and
Jarisme
.

One last long glance she gave to the dryad on the moss. Then she set off again down the path, the little magical thing stinging her hand as she walked. And as she went she wondered. This strong hatred which had flared so instinctively between her and the sorceress was hot enough to burn any trace of fear from her mind, and she remembered that look of uncertainty in the purple gaze that had shot such hatred at her. Why? Why had she not been slain as
Irsla
was slain, for defiance of this queer land’s ruler?

For a while she paced unheedingly along under the trees. Then abruptly the foliage ceased and a broad meadow lay before her, green in the clear, violet day. Beyond the meadow the slim shaft of a tower rose dazzlingly white, and toward it in steady radiance that magical talisman pointed.

From very far away she thought she still caught the echoes of that song when the wind blew, an irritating monotony that made her ears ache. She was glad when the wind died and the song no longer shrilled in her ears.

Out across the meadow she went. Far ahead she could make out purple mountains like low clouds on the horizon, and here and there in the distances clumps of woodland dotted the meadows. She walked on more rapidly now, for she was sure that the white tower housed
Jarisme
, and with her Giraud. And she must have gone more swiftly than she knew, for with almost magical speed the shining shaft drew nearer.

She could see the arch of its doorway, bluely violet within. The top of the shaft was battlemented, and she caught splashes of color between the teeth of the stone scarps, as if flowers were massed there and spilling blossoms against the whiteness of the tower. The singsong music was louder than ever, and much nearer.
Jirel’s
heart beat a bit heavily as she advanced, wondering what sort of a sorceress this
Jarisme
might be, what dangers lay before her in the path of her vow’s fulfillment. Now the white tower rose up over her, and she was crossing the little space before the door, peering in dubiously. All she could see was dimness and violet mist.

She laid her hand upon the dagger, took a deep breath and stepped boldly in under the arch. In the instant her feet left the solid earth she saw that this violet mist filled the whole shaft of the tower, that there was no floor. Emptiness engulfed her, and all reality ceased.

She was falling through clouds of violet blankness, but in no recognizable direction. It might have been up, down, or sidewise through space. Everything had vanished in the violet nothing. She knew an endless moment of vertigo and rushing motion; then the dizzy emptiness vanished in a breath and she was standing in a gasping surprise upon the roof of
Jarisme’s
tower.

She knew where she was by the white battlements ringing her round, banked with strange blossoms in muted colors. In the center of the circular, marble-paved place a low couch, cushioned in glowing yellow, stood in the midst of a heap of furs. Two people sat side by side on the couch. One was Giraud. Black-robed, dark-
visaged
, he stared at
Jirel
with a flicker of disquiet in his small, dull eyes. He said nothing.

Jirel
dismissed him with a glance, scarcely realizing his presence. For
Jarisme
had lowered from her lips a long, silver flute.
Jirel
realized that the queer, maddening music must have come from that gleaming length, for it no longer echoed in her ears.
Jarisme
was holding the instrument now in midair, regarding
Jirel
over it with a purple-eyed gaze that was somehow thoughtful and a little apprehensive, though anger glowed in it, too.

“So,” she said richly, in her slow, deep voice. “For the second time you defy me.”

At these words Giraud turned his head sharply and stared at the sorceress’ impassive profile. She did not return his gaze, but after a moment he looked quickly back at
Jirel
, and in his eyes too she saw that flicker of
alarm,
and with it a sort of scared respect. It puzzled her, and she did not like being puzzled. She said a little breathlessly,

“If you like, yes.
Give me that skulking potion-brewer beside you and set me down again outside this damned tower of trickery. I came to kill your pet
spellmonger
here for treachery done me in my own world by this creature
who
dared not stay to face me.”

Her peremptory words hung in the air like the echoes of a gong. For a while no one spoke.
Jarisme
smiled more subtly than before, an insolent, slow smile that made
Jirel’s
pulses hammer with the desire to smash it down the woman’s lush, creamy throat. At last
Jarisme
said, in a voice as rich and deep as thick-piled velvet, “Hot words, hot words,
soldier
-woman! Do you really imagine that your earthly squabbles matter to
Jarisme
?”

“What matters to
Jarisme
is of little moment to me,”
Jirel
said contemptuously. “All I want is this
skulker
here, whom I have sworn to kill.”

Jarisme’s
slow smile was maddening. “You demand it of me—
Jarisme
?” she asked with soft incredulity. “Only fools offend me, woman, and
they
but once. None commands me. You will have to learn that.”

Jirel
smiled thinly. “At what price, then, do you value your pet cur?”

Giraud half rose from the couch at that last insult, his dark face darker with a surge of anger.
Jarisme
pushed him back with a lazy hand.