by Fritz Leiber
This time there was a pause before the mocking laughter, but when it came, it was doubled. ‘Good, good, good! It pleasures me to think that Old White-beard enjoyed life a little before he became so wise, wise, wise. I dearly hope he did tumble your mother. That would explain his nobility. Where so much love was—love for each creature ever born—there must have been lust and guilt before. Out of that encounter—and all your mother’s evil—his white magic grew. It is true! Guilt and white magic side by side—and the gods never lied! Which leaves you the daughter of Glavas Rho, betraying your true father to his sooty death.’
And then his face was gone and the leaves framed only a dark hole. She blundered into the forest after him, calling out ‘Mouse! Mouse!’ and trying to follow the receding laughter. But it died away, and she found herself in a gloomy hollow, and she began to realize how evil the apprentice’s laughter had sounded, as if he laughed at the death of all love, or even its unbirth. Then panic seized her, and she fled back through the undergrowth, brambles catching at her clothes and twigs stinging her cheeks, until she had regained the clearing and was galloping back through the dusk, a thousand fears besetting her and her heart sick with the thought there was now no one in the wide world who did not hate and despise her.
When she reached the stronghold, it seemed to crouch above her like an ugly jag-crested monster, and when she passed through the great gateway, it seemed to her that the monster had gobbled her up forever.
Come nightfall on the seventh day, when dinner was being served in the great banquet hall, with much loud talk and crunching of rushes and clashing of silver plates, Janarrl stifled a cry of pain and clapped his hand to his heart.
‘It is nothing,’ he said a moment later to the thin-faced henchman sitting at his side. ‘Give me a cup of wine! That will stop it twinging.’
But he continued to look pale and ill at ease, and he ate little of the meat that was served up in great smoking slices. His eyes kept roving about the table, finally settling on his daughter.
‘Stop staring at me in that gloomy way, girl!’ he called. ‘One would think that you had poisoned my wine and were watching to see green spots come out on me. Or red ones edged with black, belike.’
This bought a general guffaw of laughter which seemed to please the Duke, for he tore off the wing of a fowl and gnawed at it hungrily, but the next moment he gave another sudden cry of pain, louder than the first, staggered to his feet, clawed convulsively at his chest, and then pitched over on the table, where he lay groaning and writhing in his pain.
‘The Duke is stricken,’ the thin-faced henchman announced quite unnecessarily and yet most portentously after bending over him. ‘Carry him to bed. One of you loosen his shirt. He gasps for air.’
A flurry of whispering went up and down the table. As the great door to his private apartments was opened for the Duke, a heavy gust of chill air made the torches flicker and turn blue, so that shadows crowded into the hall. Then one torch flared white-bright as a star, showing the face of a girl. Ivrian felt the others draw away from her with suspicious glances and mutterings, as if they were certain there had been truth in the Duke’s jest. She did not look up. After a while someone came and told her that the Duke commanded her presence. Without a word she rose and followed.
The Duke’s face was gray and furrowed with pain, but he had control of himself, though with each breath his hand tightened convulsively on the edge of the bed until his knuckles were like knobs of rock. He was propped up with pillows and a furred robe had been tucked closely about his shoulders and long-legged braziers glowed around the bed. In spite of all he was shivering convulsively.
‘Come here, girl,’ he ordered in a low, labored voice that hissed against his drawn lips. ‘You know what has happened. My heart pains as though there were a fire under it and yet my skin is cased in ice. There is a stabbing in my joints as if long needles pierced clear through the marrow. It is wizard’s work.’
‘Wizard’s work, beyond doubt,’ confirmed Giscorl, the thin-faced henchman, who stood at the head of the bed. ‘And there is no need to guess who. That young serpent whom you did not kill quickly enough ten days ago! He’s been reported skulking in the woods, aye, and talking to…certain ones,’ he added, eyeing Ivrian narrowly, suspiciously.
A spasm of agony shook the Duke. ‘I should have stamped out whelp with sire,’ he groaned. Then his eyes shifted back to Ivrian. ‘Look, girl, you’ve been seen poking about in the forest where the old wizard was killed. It’s believed you talked with his cub.’
Ivrian wet her lips, tried to speak, shook her head. She could feel her father’s eyes probing into her. Then his fingers reached out and twisted themselves in her hair.
‘I believe you’re in league with him!’ His whisper was like a rusty knife. ‘You’re helping him do this to me. Admit it! Admit!’ And he thrust her cheek against the nearest brazier so that her hair smoked and her ‘No!’ became a shuddering scream. The brazier swayed and Giscorl steadied it. Through Ivrian’s scream the Duke snarled, ‘Your mother once held red coals to prove her honor.’
A ghostly blue flame ran up Ivrian’s hair. The Duke jerked her from the brazier and fell back against the pillows…
‘Send her away,’ he finally whispered faintly, each word an effort. ‘She’s a coward and wouldn’t dare to hurt even me. Meantime, Giscorl, send out more men to hunt through the woods. They must find his lair before dawn, or I’ll rupture my heart withstanding the pain.’
Curtly Giscorl motioned Ivrian toward the door. She cringed, and slunk from the room, fighting down tears. Her cheek pulsed with pain. She was not aware of the strangely speculative smile with which the hawk-faced henchman watched her out.
Ivrian stood at the narrow window of her room watching the little bands of horsemen come and go, their torches glowing like will-o’-the-wisps in the woods. The stronghold was full of mysterious movement. The very stones seemed restlessly alive, as if they shared the torment of their master.
She felt herself drawn toward a certain point out there in the darkness. A memory kept recurring to her of how one day Glavas Rho had showed her a small cavern in the hillside and had warned her that it was an evil place, where much baneful sorcery had been done in the past. Her fingertips moved around the crescent-shaped blister on her cheek and over the rough streak in her hair.
Finally her uneasiness and the pull from the night became too strong for her. She dressed in the dark and edged open the door of her chamber. The corridor seemed for the moment deserted. She hurried along it, keeping close to the wall, and darted down the worn rounded hummocks of the stone stair. The tramp of footsteps sent her hurrying into a niche, where she cowered while two huntsmen strode glum-faced toward the Duke’s chamber. They were dust-stained and stiff from riding.
‘No one’ll find him in all that dark,’ one of them muttered. ‘It’s like hunting an ant in a cellar.’
The other nodded. ‘And wizards can change landmarks and make forest paths turn on themselves, so that all searchers are befuddled.’
As soon as they were past Ivrian hastened into the banquet hall, now dark and empty, and through the kitchen with its high brick ovens and its huge copper kettles glinting in the shadows.
Outside in the courtyard torches were flaring and there was a bustle of activity as grooms brought fresh horses or led off spent ones, but she trusted to her huntsman’s costume to let her pass unrecognized. Keeping to the shadows, she worked her way around to the stables. Her horse moved restlessly and neighed when she slipped into the stall but quieted at her low whisper. A few moments and it was saddled, and she was leading it around to the open fields at the back. No searching parties seemed to be near, so she mounted and rode swiftly toward the wood.
Her mind was a storm of anxieties. She could not explain to herself how she had dared come this far, except that the attraction toward that point in the night—the cavern against which Glavas Rho had warned her—possessed a sorcerous insistence not to be denied.
T
hen, when the forest engulfed her, she suddenly felt that she was committing herself to the arms of darkness and putting behind forever the grim stronghold and its cruel occupants. The ceiling of leaves blotted out most of the stars. She trusted to a light rein on her horse to guide her straight. And in this she was successful, for within a half hour she reached a shallow ravine which led past the cavern she sought.
Now, for the first time, her horse became uneasy. It balked and uttered little whinnying cries of fear and tried repeatedly to turn off as she urged it along the ravine. Its pace slowed to a walk. Finally it refused to move further. Its ears were laid back and it was trembling all over.
Ivrian dismounted and moved on. The forest was portentously quiet, as if all animals and birds—even the insects—had gone. The darkness ahead was almost tangible, as if built of black bricks just beyond her hand.
Then Ivrian became aware of the green glow, vague and faint at first as the ghosts of an aurora. Gradually it grew brighter and acquired a flickering quality, as the leafy curtains between her and it became fewer. Suddenly she found herself staring directly at it—a thick, heavy, soot-edge flame that writhed instead of danced. If green slime could be transmuted to fire, it would have that look. It burned in the mouth of a shallow cavern.
Then, beside the flame, she saw the face of the apprentice of Glavas Rho, and in that instant an agony of horror and sympathy tore at her mind.
The face seemed inhuman—more a green mask of torment than anything alive. The cheeks were drawn in; the eyes were unnaturally wild; it was very pale, and dripping with cold sweat induced by intense inward effort. There was much suffering in it, but also much power—power to control the thick twisting shadows that seemed to crowd around the green flame, power to master the forces of hate that were being marshaled. At regular intervals the cracked lips moved and the arms and hands made set gestures.
It seemed to Ivrian that she heard the mellow voice of Glavas Rho repeating a statement he had once made to Mouse and to her. ‘None can use black magic without straining the soul to the uttermost—and staining it into the bargain. None can inflict suffering without enduring the same. None can send death by spells and sorcery without walking on the brink of death’s own abyss, aye, and dripping his own blood into it. The forces black magic evokes are like two-edged poisoned swords with grips studded with scorpion stings. Only a strong man, leather-handed, in whom hate and evil are very powerful, can wield them, and he only for a space.’
In Mouse’s face Ivrian saw the living example of those words. Step by step she moved toward him, feeling no more power to control her movements than if she were in a nightmare. She became aware of shadowy presences, as if she were pushing her way through cobweb veils. She came so near that she could have reached out her hand and touched him, and still he did not notice her, as if his spirit were out beyond the stars, grappling the blackness there.
Then a twig snapped under her foot and Mouse sprang up with terrifying swiftness, the energy of every taut muscle released. He snatched up his sword and lunged at the intruder. But when the green blade was within a hand’s breadth of Ivrian’s throat, he checked it with an effort. He glared, lips drawn back from his teeth. Although he had checked his sword, he seemed only half to recognize her.
At that instant Ivrian was buffeted by a mighty gust of wind, which came from the mouth of the cavern, a strange wind, carrying shadows. The green fire burned low, running rapidly along the sticks that were its fuel, and almost snuffing out.
Then the wind ceased and the thick darkness lifted, to be replaced by a wan gray light heralding the dawn. The fire turned from green to yellow. The wizard’s apprentice staggered, and the sword dropped from his fingers.
‘Why did you come here?’ he questioned thickly.
She saw how his face was wasted with hunger and hate, how his clothing bore the signs of many nights spent in the forest like an animal, under no roof. Then suddenly she realized that she knew the answer to his question.
‘Oh, Mouse,’ she whispered, ‘let us go away from this place. Here is only horror.’ He swayed, and she caught hold of him. ‘Take me with you, Mouse,’ she said.
He stared frowningly into her eyes. ‘You do not hate me then, for what I have done to your father? Or what I have done to the teachings of Glavas Rho?’ he questioned puzzledly. ‘You are not afraid of me?’
‘I am afraid of everything,’ she whispered, clinging to him. ‘I am afraid of you, yes, a great deal afraid. But that fear can be unlearned. Oh, Mouse, will you take me away?—to Lankhmar or to Earth’s End?’
He took her by the shoulders. ‘I have dreamed of that,’ he said slowly. ‘But you…’
‘Apprentice of Glavas Rho!’ thundered a stern, triumphant voice. ‘I apprehend you in the name of Duke Janarrl for sorceries practiced on the Duke’s body!’
Four huntsmen were springing forward from the undergrowth with swords drawn and Giscorl three paces behind them. Mouse met them halfway. They soon found that this time they were not dealing with a youth blinded by anger, but with a cold and cunning swordsman. There was a kind of magic in his primitive blade. He ripped up the arm of his first assailant with a well-judged thrust, disarmed the second with an unexpected twist, then coolly warded off the blows of the other two, retreating slowly. But other huntsmen followed the first four and circled around. Still fighting with terrible intensity and giving blow for blow, Mouse went down under the sheer weight of their attack. They pinioned his arms and dragged him to his feet. He was bleeding from a cut in the cheek, but he carried his head high, though it was beast-shaggy. His bloodshot eyes sought out Ivrian.
‘I should have known,’ he said evenly, ‘that having betrayed Glavas Rho you would not rest until you had betrayed me. You did your work well, girl. I trust you take much pleasure in my death.’
Giscorl laughed. Like a whip, the words of Mouse stung Ivrian. She could not meet his eyes. Then she became aware that there was a man on horseback behind Giscorl and, looking up, she saw that it was her father. His wide body was bent by pain. His face was a death’s mask. It seemed a miracle that he managed to cling to the saddle.
‘Quick, Giscorl!’ he hissed.
But the thin-faced henchman was already sniffing around in the cavern’s mouth like a well-trained ferret. He gave a cry of satisfaction and lifted down a little figure from a ledge above the fire, which he next stamped out. He carried the figure as gingerly as if it were made of cobweb. As he passed by her, Ivrian saw that it was a clay doll wide as it was tall and dressed in brown and yellow leaves, and that its features were a grotesque copy of her father’s. It was pierced in several places by long bone needles.
‘This is the thing, oh Master,’ said Giscorl, holding it up, but the Duke only repeated, ‘Quick, Giscorl!’ The henchman started to withdraw the largest needle which pierced the doll’s middle, but the Duke gasped in agony and cried, ‘Forget not the balm!’ Whereupon Giscorl uncorked with his teeth and poured a large vial of sirupy liquid over the doll’s body and the Duke sighed a little with relief. Then Giscorl very carefully withdrew the needles, one by one, and as each needle was withdrawn the Duke’s breath whistled and he clapped his hand to his shoulder or thigh, as if it were from his own body that the needles were being drawn. After the last one was out, he sat slumped in his saddle for a long time. When he finally looked up the transformation that had taken place was astonishing. There was color in his face, and the lines of pain had vanished, and his voice was loud and ringing.
‘Take the prisoner back to our stronghold to await our judgment,’ he cried. ‘Let this be a warning to all who would practice wizardry in our domain. Giscorl, you have proved yourself a faithful servant.’ His eyes rested on Ivrian. ‘You have played with witchcraft too often, girl, and need other instruction. As a beginning you will witness the punishment I shall visit on this foul wizardling.’
‘A small boon, oh Duke!’ Mouse cried. He had been hoisted onto a saddle and his legs tied under the horse’s belly.
‘Keep your foul, spying daughter out of my sight. And let her not look at me in my pain.’
‘Strike him in the lips, one of you,’ the Duke ordered. ‘Ivrian, ride close behind him—I command it.’
Slowly the little cavalcade rode off toward the stronghold through the brightening dawn. Ivrian’s horse had been brought to her and she took her place as bidden, sunk in a nightmare of misery and defeat. She seemed to see the pattern of her whole life laid out before her—past, present, and future—and it consisted of nothing but fear, loneliness, and pain. Even the memory of her mother, who had died when she was a little girl, was something that still brought a palpitation of panic to her heart: a bold, handsome woman, who always had a whip in her hand, and whom even her father had feared. Ivrian remembered how when the servants had brought word that her mother had broken her neck in a fall from a horse, her only emotion had been fear that they were lying to her, and that this was some new trick of her mother’s to put her off guard, and that some new punishment would follow.
Then, from the day of her mother’s death, her father had shown her nothing but a strangely perverse cruelty. Perhaps it was his disgust at not having a son that made him treat her like a cowardly boy instead of a girl and encourage his lowliest followers to maltreat her—from the maids who played at ghosts around her bed to the kitchen wenches who put frogs in her milk and nettles in her salad.
Sometimes it seemed to her that anger at not having a son was too weak an explanation for her father’s cruelties, and that he was revenging himself through Ivrian on his dead wife, whom he had certainly feared and who still influenced his actions, since he had never married again or openly taken mistresses. Or perhaps there was truth in what he had said of her mother and Glavas Rho—no, surely that must be a wild imagining of his anger. Or perhaps, as he sometimes told her, he was trying to make her live up to her mother’s vicious and blood-thirsty example, trying to recreate his hated and adored wife in the person of her daughter, and finding a queer pleasure in the refractoriness of the material on which he worked and the grotesquerie of the whole endeavor.