Crewel Lye

by Piers Anthony

  She came toward me, then threw the spell, in the underhanded female way. Her aim was good, however; the spell struck the tree and dropped directly before me. The black sword, sensing danger, sliced at the spell. “Invoke!” I cried.

  I saw it glow, just before the black sword struck it. Then the strangest thing happened.

  My consciousness seemed to leave my body and fly ghostlike through the air. Had I been abruptly slain by an unseen strike of the evil blade? Was my soul now flying to wherever it was fated to go? But this had never happened before when I died!

  Then my awareness approached Threnody as she stood between me and Pook, prettily concerned. Suddenly it dived into her body and settled there.

  I heard a hoarse scream. I saw myself drop my sword and hunch back into the dead tree. Immediately the enemy sword lunged, running its blade through my unprotected heart. My blood spouted from my chest as I fell forward, dead.

  But the black sword was not finished. It lifted itself high, then struck down on my exposed neck, cutting off my head. The head rolled a few paces away and came to rest in a hollow, staring up with a slightly bemused expression.

  Still the evil sword did not desist. It hacked at my right arm, cutting it off, then started on my left, up at the shoulder where it remained flesh. The thing meant to dismember me entirely!

  I ran toward it, unable to watch this destruction of my body without acting.

  Then I paused. How could I run toward it when I was already dead and decapitated?

  I realized that, though my body was dead, my consciousness was not. It was now in Threnody’s body. And her consciousness—must be in mine. Presently unconscious. For I had activated the spell of exchange. Well, of exchange-back; the one intended to counter Yang’s exchange spell. Since we hadn’t been exchanged, we couldn’t be un-exchanged; the un-exchange constituted an exchange in itself. I had brought upon myself the very mischief I had hoped to avoid!

  When we exchanged identities, Threnody had found herself in my male body, fighting the deadly sword—and she hadn’t known how to defend herself. As with the notion of assuming the form of a bird and trying to fly without practice, she was unable to fight like a man simply because she had a man’s body. Womanlike, she had screamed and cowered. Thus she had been instantly vulnerable, and the enemy weapon had seized its advantage and gotten her. It didn’t realize it had killed the wrong person; how could it know?

  Theoretically, I had a minute to reverse the spell before it took full hold. But how? Only by finding the black exchange spell could I do that—and then I would merely exchange myself into a dead and dismembered body! Also, that minute had already passed, as if time meant anything now. What a picklement this was!

  When would that terrible enemy sword stop? It seemed determined to mince my entire body. I might have the use of another body now, but I still couldn’t stand idly by and let it happen! Since my talent had been strained by overuse recently, I wasn’t sure how much more it could take.

  Or had my healing talent flown with my consciousness to Threnody’s body? If that were so, then my body—and Threnody’s consciousness—was dead, and I was stuck forever in her body. Would Yin be after me to marry him?

  Thinking of it that way, I felt greater sympathy for Threnody’s resistance to the idea of being taken to Castle Roogna for marriage.

  No, I had to assume that our talents remained with our bodies, so that it was possible for my body to revive and take me back. I had to stop that sword from doing more damage!

  Well, maybe I could bluff it. I resumed my run to it, leaned down, and grabbed the hilt. The sword paused in surprise. “Well done, excellent sword!” I cried in Threnody’s voice. “You have acted courageously and saved me from a fate worse than death! Now you can rest.”

  The sword hesitated, then decided to accept this. I smiled winningly at it, knowing the power of a lovely female expression over masculine things. Threnody herself had used it on me, and I had been hard put to it to resist.

  But I wasn’t sure how long I could fool this dread instrument. If and when it caught on to my real identity, it would attack this body and dismember it, too, and then I would be truly finished. I had to put the evil weapon out of commission before it did catch on. But how?

  By using Threnody’s talent, of course! When she went diffuse, so did her clothing; otherwise she would have been naked when I caught her, and I was sure I would have remembered a thing like that. She had been clothed in her gray dress, which I now wore, which meant that things closely associated with her shared the effect. So I could go diffuse, and do the same to the sword I held, and—

  And when I let it go, it might return to its original state and come after me with a deadly gleam on its surface. Better not to risk that. Going far away from it was not the answer, either; it could fly, and the other spells had shown dismaying longevity. It would catch me in time.

  Well, what else could I do with it? Whatever it was, I didn’t want to wait long—because until I nullified the sword, I couldn’t do anything for my dead body. It bothered me, seeing that severed head staring up. Suppose a predatory animal came to gobble it down?

  Ha—my elevated intelligence remained; in fact, it seemed a little enhanced, because there was no dirt in Threnody’s brain to mess it up. Or was I using her brain? I surely wasn’t using my own! Whatever, my thought was this: diffuse the sword, then put it into something that would hold it in place when it solidified.

  Of course, first I had to see if Threnody’s talent would work for me. I had never had a talent like hers before and I wasn’t sure how to invoke it. Should I just will myself thin, or smoky, or what? Was there some key phrase to utter? Well, my own talent of healing didn’t need any special attention; it merely operated at need. Maybe this did, too. So I would concentrate on being smoky, and see what happened.

  “Let’s take a nice little walk,” I said to the black sword, still holding it in my delicate hand. It was surely too heavy for this slender arm to support for long, but it was self-sustaining and felt quite light. Maybe that was another masculine trait. I had to admit it was a handsome weapon, and there were no nicks in its blade. It was therefore superior to mine. But it was not mine, and I couldn’t trust it. Especially not when my own body revived.

  I wondered where this instrument had come from originally; surely Magician Yang had not forged it himself. He must have obtained the sword, then enchanted it. The same would be true of his other spells, and those of Yin. It was remarkable that the twin brothers had such similar talents; I had heard of twins before who had quite dissimilar talents.

  I turned—and there was Pook. His ears were flat back, his teeth bared, his nostrils dilated, and his eyes were rimmed by white. His whole body was tense, and his chains rattled warningly. This was one hyper-nervous horse!

  I realized what was wrong. He thought I was Threnody and that I had now armed myself with the terrible evil sword! “Pook!” I cried. “Let me explain!”

  But then I realized that the sword was listening too. If I told Pook who I was, and convinced him, the sword would also know, and that would be disaster. Threnody’s slender arms did not have the strength to hold this thing if it got violent. Maybe my own arms would not have been strong enough. It was one wicked weapon!

  How could I let Pook know without giving myself away to the dread sword? Fortunately, the residual eye-queue spell enabled me to think of a way. Or maybe it was Threnody’s brain, which was a good one.

  “Stand aside, animal,” I said to him. “This fine sword will strike down any creature who seeks to convey me to Castle Roogna. It is quiescent now only because I am free. You saw what it did to that ilk.” I glanced back at my horrendously hacked body.

  Pook’s ears went even flatter back. In a moment he would attack me, overcome by grief and rage. He was an animal, but he was loyal, and I was indeed proud to have him as my friend.

  “Whom do you suppose you are facing, animal?” I demanded, looking him directly in a dilated eye.
I held the black sword in my right hand, near my body; slowly I winked my left eye, which was out of sight of the sword.

  The ghost horse blinked, startled, but his menace did not abate. He knew what a liar Threnody was.

  “Remember the nature of the spells you carry,” I said. I had described them to him in the course of our journey to Threnody’s house, since they might affect his welfare as well as mine. “Remember which have been invoked and which have not.” That was as close as I dared hint, for the sword might know about the other spells, too, and I didn’t know how smart it was. I dared not tell it too much.

  Still Pook did not react; the hint had not been enough. I had mentioned the various types of spells to him, but maybe he had forgotten the exchange spell. Indeed, who would have believed how it had acted on this occasion?

  “Remember your past experiences,” I continued. “How you were herded into the firewall by this dead ilk behind me, who only wanted a free ride. How he cruelly rode you into the territory of the goblins and the lair of the callicantzari.” Again I winked, and again Pook blinked. Threnody had not been with us then, and I had not told her; Pook had been with us and would have known if I had gone into that with her. But now he was mystified, not certain.

  “And the elves,” I said. “Remember how he dallied three days with Bluebell, deserting you! What do you owe him? And think of the stork, the dragons, and the baby ogre; that barbarian made you wander all over Xanth, and for what?” I fixed his eye again. “What was there ever between you and this man? Whatever it was, let it remain unchanged.” I paused, knowing he knew the answer—friendship.

  A third time I winked, covertly. “Whom do you suppose you are facing, friend?”

  Slowly Pook’s ears relaxed, and the white circles around his eyes disappeared. Now at last he had caught on. He would go along with what I planned, as he had done before.

  “I have an errand elsewhere,” I said briskly. I glanced back at my body. “You know what to do with this corpse, to whom you owe nothing. Now stand aside.”

  Pook moved aside. I walked on by him, the sword extended before me. I passed on through the grove of artis-trees, admiring each. Barbarians don’t have much culture, but maybe Threnody’s royal tastes were rubbing off on me, for each tree seemed to be a marvel of individual expression and form. No two were alike in color or structure or size, but each was a masterpiece of its type. Xanth could use more artis-trees!

  While I walked, I concentrated on becoming less dense. It didn’t seem to be working, but since it was my only hope, I had to keep trying. A shift of form or size or density took an hour, she had said, so I would try for an hour—or whatever it took.

  And as I walked, concentrated, and hoped, I was aware of the nature of this body. It differed from mine. The proportions were funny; the legs seemed sort of short and fat in the thigh; the arms were short and so low on muscle as to seem like pipestems. The center of weight was lower, and the balance was strange, seeming bottom-heavy. With my free left hand I felt about, verifying that there was an unseemly volume of posterior, and the chest—it seemed unnatural, having all that flesh on my chest. It bounced when I walked too fast. In fact, I had extra flesh distributed all over; I felt ungainly.

  There were other problems. My black hair flopped about my shoulders and tended to fall forward to obscure my vision if I didn’t keep my chin up. There was something about the way I walked; my hipbones were set too far out, or something, so that my whole pelvis gyrated awkwardly when I took full-sized steps. The only way I could control it was to confine myself to mincing little steps that slowed forward progress.

  Ah, well, doubtless it was worthwhile to have the opportunity to appreciate first-hand the liabilities of the female form. No wonder women tended to be jealous of men!

  In the course of half an hour, to my immense relief, I verified that Threnody’s talent was working; I was definitely lighter, and the resistance of the air seemed greater. Now I needed to find a suitable place to stash the sword.

  In a tree? No, it might cut its way free. In a deep hole? No, someone might dig it out too soon. It had to be permanently bound.

  Then I spied a sitting boulder at the edge of the artis-tree community. The rock was about half as tall as a man, and massive; it seemed to be solid marble.

  I continued to walk until the transformation was complete, and the sword and I were as diffuse as fog, or more so, I kicked at a tree trunk, and my small foot passed through it with hardly perceptible resistance. I was ready!

  I marched up to the rock, lifted the sword in both hands, shifted my grip so that it pointed straight down, and plunged it into the boulder. It sank in to the hilt. I removed my hands, stood back, and contemplated it with satisfaction. “Stay there, dread blade!” I said.

  I shouldn’t have said that. The sword heard me and evidently realized that something was amiss. It began to lift itself out of the boulder.

  Quickly I grabbed the hilt and shoved the sword back. “Relax, relax!” I cried. “You have done so well, honored blade; now you must rest. You can’t be a gay blade all the time.” I batted my lovely eyelids at it.

  The sword relaxed. But I didn’t dare risk letting it go again, for if it pulled out of the boulder and flew away, I would never catch it. So I held on, soothing it with my gentle feminine touch—that, too, I had learned about when Threnody kissed me and held me the night before, despite the lie that touch implied—keeping it in place while we slowly solidified.

  But it had some suspicion and started to wiggle; I was afraid of its brute force, so I pacified it by singing to it. My voice was lovely and sad; I didn’t know the proper tune or words, so I just sang la-la-la with enormous feeling, and as long as I did that, the weapon was quiescent. No wonder women practiced subversive wiles on men; what else was effective?

  I stood and sang for the full hour it took to restore body and sword to full solidity. Then at last I let go of the weapon—and it was embedded firmly in the boulder. Good enough! That blade would bother me no more.

  I left the sword in the stone behind, retreating cautiously, watching to be quite certain that dread weapon did not abruptly free itself and resume its mischief. It remained in place. I wondered whether someday, in some other land, that blade on the boulder would turn up in some significant spot, and someone would learn how to—no, ridiculous! What use was a sword in a stone? No one in Xanth would fool around with anything like that.

  I started back toward the site of my body’s demise … and a shadow descended. Oops—that looked very much like a—in fact, it was a—

  I reached for my sword, and of course my delicate hand slapped only soft flesh. The sword I had carried was in the stone; my own blade was with my body. I was unarmed.

  The creature glided to a landing before me. It was a fair-sized griffin, a female, for her color was shoe-polish brown. In virtually every species of living creature, it is the male who is the creature of splendors with the brightest colors, the biggest muscles, the best proportions. There is one exception—the human species; there the female seems to have most of the splendors. I have never been certain what went wrong. Maybe some long-ago curse was put on man and on man-related creatures. Also, the females of other species are good hunters and fighters, while those of ours are not. In this more-decorative-than-functional body, I was suddenly aware of my extreme vulnerability. This griffiness was well equipped with beak and claws, while I—

  It was too late to hide; the griffiness had landed because she had spied easy prey. I could not fight; I had neither sword nor muscle to wield it. I could not change form; that took too long. More than ever now, I appreciated the position of human women. No wonder Threnody had not wanted to travel home alone; she would have been dead in hours. Predators that never showed their mugs to me, knowing that armed barbarian warriors were not to be trifled with, would freely stalk an unarmed woman. What was I to do?

  Well, Threnody had tried to use guile on me, and I had used it on the black sword. Now that I was in h
er position, it seemed like a natural course. I would have to trick this predator somehow. What were griffins concerned about?

  Aha! They were notoriously clean creatures, the opposite of harpies. Griffins spent hours preening their feathers and stroking their fur and cleaning their claws. They never fed on carrion, but always killed fresh. They were like the rocs in that respect. No griffin or roc ever died from food poisoning. They were good enough hunters so that they could afford to be choosy.

  I huffed myself up and issued a feeling groan. The advancing griffiness paused, cocking her bird-head. She had been approaching me slowly, knowing I could not escape; griffins were more efficient than dragons and never scrambled when they did not have to. When a dragon made a kill, it was apt to be messy, with blood and gobbets of flesh strewn across the landscape; when a griffin did it, there was hardly even a scream. She was hesitating, not from any nervousness, but to make quite sure there was nothing here that might soil her feathers.

  “Oooh, it’s so horrible!” I lamented. “If only I’d known those berries were contaminated!”

  Griffins don’t have visible ears; nevertheless, her head perked up. Contamination?

  “Now I’ve got the Green-Spotted Gut Rot in my gizzard and I’m filling up with purple pus. Please slay me before I rupture!” I staggered directly toward her.

  The griffiness backed off—but not too far. She had a keen eye for flesh, and mine did not look spoiled. In fact, I was about as delectable a sample of female anatomy as could be found in Xanth, surely tasty in every portion. Had I had more time to prepare, I could have smeared green juice-berries on my tender skin, staining it impressively. That was the problem with extemporaneous efforts; the verisimilitude suffers.

  But I improvised, discovering the genius of desperation. “Would you believe,” I pleaded distraughtly, “that I am actually a man? My innards have been so mixed up that there’s no telling what will squeeze out next! Look at this!” I used my hands to cup my well-endowed bosom. “My chest muscles are practically drooping off!”