Jirel of Joiry (6 page)

She opened her eyes. She was standing rigidly before the great fire-quickened globe. The amazing company was grouped around her intently, and
Jarisme
, facing her, had taken one angry, incredulous step forward as she saw her own spell break. Upon that tableau
Jirel’s
hot yellow eyes opened, and she laughed in grim exultation and swung up her arm. Violet light glinted upon crystal.

In the instant
Jarisme
saw what she intended
,
convulsive terror wiped all other expression from her face. A cry of mingled inarticulateness thundered up from the transfixed crowd. Giraud started forward from among them, frantic hands clawing out toward her.

“No, no!” shrieked
Jarisme
. “Wait!” It was too late. The crystal dashed itself from
Jirel’s
down-swinging arm, the light in it blazing. With a splintering crash it struck the floor at the sorceress’ sandaled feet and flew into shining fragments.

For an instant nothing happened.
Jirel
held her breath, waiting. Giraud had flung himself flat on the shining floor, reaching out for her in a last desperate effort. His hands had flown out to seize her, and found only her ankles. He clung to them now with a paralyzed grip, his face hidden between his arms.
Jarisme
cowered motionless, arms clasped about her head as if she were trying to hide. The motley throng of watchers was rigid in fatalistic quiet. In tense silence they waited.

Then in the great globe above them the pale flame flickered.
Jarisme’s
gaspingly caught breath sounded loud in the utter quiet. Again the flame shook.
And again.
Then abruptly it went out. Darkness stunned them for a moment; then a low muttering roar rumbled up out of the stillness, louder and deeper and stronger until it pressed unbearably upon
Jirel’s
ears and her head was one great aching surge of sound. Above that roar a sharply crackling noise broke, and the crystal walls of the room trembled, reeled dizzily—split open in long jagged rents through which the violet day poured in thin fingers of light. Overhead the shattering sound of falling walls roared loud.
Jarisme’s
magic tower was crumbling all around them. Through the long, shivering cracks in the walls the pale violet day poured more strongly, serene in the chaos.

In that clear light
Jirel
saw a motion among the throng.
Jarisme
had risen to her full height. She saw the sleek black head go up in an odd, defiant, desperate poise, and above the soul-shaking tumult she heard the sorceress’ voice scream,

“
Urda
!
Urda-sla
!”

In the midst of the roar of the falling walls for the briefest instant a deathly silence dropped. And out of that silence, like an answer to the sorceress’ cry, came a Noise, an indescribable, intolerable loudness like the crack of cyclopean thunder. And suddenly in the sky above them, visible through the crumbling crystal walls, a long black wedge opened. It was like a strip of darkest midnight splitting the violet day, a midnight through which stars shone unbearably near, unbearably bright.

Jirel
stared up in dumb surprise at that streak of starry night cleaving the
daylit
sky.
Jarisme
stood rigid, arms
outstretched,
defiantly fronting the thunderous dark whose apex was drawing nearer and nearer, driving downward like a vast celestial spear. She did not flinch as it reached toward the tower.
Jirel
saw the darkness sweep forward like a racing shadow. Then it was upon them, and the earth shuddered under her feet, and from very far away she heard
Jarisme
scream.

When consciousness returned to her, she sat up painfully and stared around. She lay upon green grass, bruised and aching, but unharmed. The violet day was serene and unbroken once more. The purple peaks had vanished. No longer was she high among mountains. Instead, the green meadow where she had first seen
Jarisme’s
tower stretched about her. In its dissolution it must have returned to its original site, flashing back along the magical ways it had traveled as the sorceress’ magic was broken. For the tower too was gone. A little distance away she saw a heap of marble blocks outlining a rough circle, where that white shaft had risen. But the stones were weathered and cracked like the old, old stones of an ancient ruin.

She had been staring at this for many minutes, trying to focus her bewildered mind upon its significance, before the sound of groaning which had been going on for some time impressed itself on her brain. She turned. A little way off, Giraud lay in a tangle of torn black robes. Of
Jarisme
and the rest she saw no sign. Painfully she got to her feet and staggered to the wizard, turning him over with a disdainful toe. He opened his eyes and stared at her with a cloudy gaze into which recognition and realization slowly crept.

“Are you hurt?” she demanded.

He pulled himself to a sitting position and flexed his limbs experimentally. Finally he shook his head, more in answer to his own investigation than to her query, and got slowly to his feet.
Jirel’s
eyes sought the weapon at his hip.

“I am going to kill you now,” she said calmly. “Draw your sword, wizard.”

The little dull eyes flashed up to her face. He stared. Whatever he saw in the yellow gaze must have satisfied him that she meant what she said, but he did not draw, nor did he fall back. A tight little smile drew his mouth askew, and he lifted his black-robed arms.
Jirel
saw them rise, and her gaze followed the gesture automatically. Up they went, up. And then in the queerest fashion she lost all control of her own eyes, so that they followed some invisible upward line which drew her on and on skyward until she was rigidly staring at a fixed point of invisibility at the spot where the lines of Giraud’s arms would have crossed, where they extended to a measureless distance. Somehow she actually saw that point, and could not look away. Gripped in the magic of those lifted arms, she stood rigid, not even realizing what had happened, unable even to think in the
moveless
magic of Giraud.

His little mocking chuckle reached her from immeasurably far away.

“Kill me?” he was laughing thickly. “Kill me, Giraud? Why, it was you who saved me,
Joiry
! Why else should I have clung to your ankles so tightly? For I knew that when the Light died, the only one who could hope to live would be the one who slew it—nor was that a certainty, either. But I took the risk, and well I did, or I would be with
Jarisme
now in the outer dark whence she called up her no-god of the void to save her from oblivion. I warned
her what
would happen if she tampered with Fate. And I would rather—yes, much rather—
be
here, in this pleasant violet land which I shall rule alone now. Thanks to you,
Joiry
! Kill me, eh? I think not!”

That thick, mocking chuckle reached her remotely, penetrated her magic-stilled mind. It echoed round and round there, for a long while, before she realized what it meant. But at last she remembered, and her mind woke a little from its inertia, and such anger swept over her that its heat was an actual pain. Giraud, the runaway sorcerer, laughing at
Joiry
! Holding
Jirel
of
Joiry
in his spell! Mocking her! Blindly she wrenched at the bonds of magic, blindly urged her body forward. She could see nothing but that non-existent point where the lifted arms would have crossed, in measureless distances, but she felt the dagger-hilt in her hand, and she lunged forward through invisibility, and did not even know when the blade sank home.

Sight returned to her then in a stunning flood. She rubbed dazed eyes and shook herself and stared round the green meadow in the violet day uncomprehendingly, for her mind was not yet fully awake. Not until she looked down did she remember.

Giraud lay there. The black robes were furled like wings over his quiet body, but red in a thick flood was spreading on the grass, and from the tangled garments her dagger-hilt stood up.
Jirel
stared down at him, emotionless, her whole body still almost asleep from the power of the dead man’s magic. She could not even feel triumph. She pulled the blade free automatically and wiped it on his robes. Then she sat down beside the body and rested her head in her hands, forcing herself to awaken.

After a long while she looked up again, the old hot light rising in her eyes, life flushing back into her face once more. Shaking off the last shreds of the spell, she got to her feet, sheathing the dagger. About her the violet-misted meadows were very still. No living creature moved anywhere in sight. The trees were motionless in the
unstirring
air. And beyond the ruins of the marble tower she saw the opening in the woods out of which her path had come, very long ago.

Jirel
squared her shoulders and turned her back upon her vow fulfilled, and without a backward glance set off across the grass toward the tree-hid ruins which held the gate to home.

1

They brought in
Joiry’s
tall commander, struggling between two men-at-arms who tightly gripped the ropes which bound their captive’s mailed arms. They picked their way between mounds of dead as they crossed the great hall toward the dais where the conqueror sat, and twice they slipped a little in the blood that spattered the flags. When they came to a halt before the mailed figure on the dais,
Joiry’s
commander was breathing hard, and the voice that echoed hollowly under the helmet’s confines was hoarse with fury and despair.

Guillaume the conqueror leaned on his mighty sword, hands crossed on its hilt, grinning down from his height upon the furious captive before him. He was a big man, Guillaume, and he looked bigger still in his spattered armor. There was blood on his hard, scarred face, and he was
grinning
a white grin that split his short, curly beard glitteringly. Very splendid and very dangerous he looked, leaning on his great sword and smiling down upon fallen
Joiry’s
lord, struggling between the stolid men-at-arms.

“
Unshell
me this lobster,” said Guillaume in his deep, lazy voice. “We’ll see what sort of face the fellow has who gave us such a battle. Off with his helmet, you.”

But a third man had to come up and slash the straps which held the iron helmet on, for the struggles of
Joiry’s
commander were too fierce, even with bound arms, for either of the guards to release their hold. There was a moment of sharp struggle; then the straps parted and the helmet rolled loudly across the flagstones.

Guillaume’s white teeth clicked on a startled oath. He stared.
Joiry’s
lady glared back at him from between her captors, wild red hair tousled,
wild
lion-yellow eyes ablaze.

“God curse you!” snarled the lady of
Joiry
between clenched teeth. “God blast your black heart!”

Guillaume scarcely heard her. He was still staring, as most men stared when they first set eyes upon
Jirel
of
Joiry
. She was tall as most men and as savage as the wildest of them, and the fall of
Joiry
was bitter enough to break her heart as she stood snarling curses up at her tall conqueror. The face above her mail might not have been fair in a woman’s headdress, but in the steel setting of her armor it had a biting, sword-edge beauty as keen as the flash of blades. The red hair was short upon her high, defiant head, and the yellow blaze of her eyes held fury as a crucible holds fire.

Guillaume’s stare melted into a slow smile. A little light kindled behind his eyes as he swept the long, strong lines of her with a practiced gaze. The smile broadened, and suddenly he burst into full-throated laugher, a deep bull bellow of amusement and delight.

“By the Nails!” he roared. “Here’s welcome for the warrior! And what forfeit
d’ye
offer, pretty one, for your life?”

She blazed a curse at him.

“So?
Naughty words for a mouth so fair, my lady.
Well, we’ll not deny you put up a gallant battle. No man could have done better, and many have done worse. But against Guillaume—” He inflated his splendid chest and grinned down at her from the depths of his jutting beard. “Come to me, pretty one,” he commanded. “I’ll wager your mouth is sweeter than your words.”

Jirel
drove a spurred heel into the shin on one guard and twisted from his grip as he howled, bringing up an iron knee into the abdomen of the other. She had writhed from their grip and made three long strides toward the door before Guillaume caught her. She felt his arms closing about her from behind and lashed out with both spiked heels in a futile assault upon his leg armor, twisting like a maniac, fighting with her knees and spurs, straining hopelessly at the ropes which bound her arms. Guillaume laughed and whirled her around, grinning down into the blaze of her yellow eyes. Then deliberately he set a fist under her chin and tilted her mouth up to his. There was a cessation of her hoarse curses.

“By Heaven, that’s like kissing a sword blade,” said Guillaume, lifting his lips at last.

Jirel
choked something that was mercifully muffled as she darted her head sidewise, like a serpent striking, and sank her teeth into his neck. She missed the jugular by a fraction of an inch.

Guillaume said nothing, then. He sought her head with a steady hand, found it despite her wild writhing,
sank
iron fingers deep into the hinges of her jaw, forcing her teeth relentlessly apart. When he had her free, he glared down into the yellow hell of her eyes for an instant. The blaze of them was hot enough to scorch his scarred face. He grinned and lifted his
ungauntleted
hand, and with one heavy blow in the face he knocked her halfway across the room. She lay still upon the flags.