They assembled in the courtyard in the last hour of the third watch. Shin Hu had posted guards to ensure that the ritual was not disrupted, and the household was inside. Wang Liu and his wife watched from their rooms. All was ready except for the old cook.
"Where is he?" grumbled Shin Hu. He looked around, and stopped in his tracks. Approaching them was an aged priest, regal in his robes and staff. It took a moment to recognize the man they knew as the old cook.
"Your Reverence," Shin Hu said, without any irony or amusement in his voice, so drastic was the change in the old man. The priest nodded, looked around.
Confidently he stepped to the table that had been set up as an altar in the area before the sand garden. On it were sweet rice buns, a jar of wine, and some honey sweetened barley cakes. He lit the incense burner. As the fragrant smoke began to rise he began to chant. The words went on, incomprehensible, in the ancient tongue of the mountain tribes. It seemed to all present that the smoke was swirling in patterns that represented images.
Then she was there, standing beside the stone, still covered only in her thick, long, dark hair, perfectly beautiful and seductive as only a demon could be. There were indrawn gasps of breath as they all took in the vision. She gazed at them, her eyes as cold as a snake's, but with a wild, untamed spirit. Suddenly Lin Mei understood all the stories she had heard about the wild tribes of the mountains, and she believed the tale of their ancestry.
"Lumas," the priest chanted, "accept our deepest and most sincere regret at the disturbance to your home. Accept our offerings in the spirit we offer them, and we pray you to forgive us our transgressions." She stepped forward, eyed him with a mixture of amusement and frank female appraisal.
"I have heard of you," she said. Her voice was as rich and sweet as honey, deep and husky, and no longer angry. The old priest took a deep, ragged breath.
"A time of youthful indiscretions," he said. "Please forgive me." She smiled at him, mirthful and sly at the same time.
"My sister says there is nothing to forgive. She sends her regards." She looked down at the table, stepped forward and took up a barley cake. She bit into it delicately, almost sensuously. "It's been too long since I had one," she said. Her hand waved over the table, and the offerings vanished. "I'll enjoy them later," she said. Then she was gone into the shadows.
For a while there was silence. "Is she gone?" Lin Mei asked quietly at last. The priest shook his head.
"No," he told her. "But she accepts her new home. I will leave periodic offerings, so that she will continue to accept it. She will no longer trouble the harmony of this household." He covered the incense burner, snuffing out the smoke.
As they started to disperse Lin Mei looked over at the stables and saw Shadow and Twilight watching from the doorway. "You have a unique bond with your two companions," the priest told her, following her gaze. "It will be interesting to see how it develops."
"It will be," Lin Mei said. She smiled at him, and his wise old eyes smiled back at her.
Vanishing Village
by Margaret L. Carter
Reading DRACULA at the age of twelve ignited Margaret L. Carter's interest in a wide range of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Vampires have always remained close to her heart (figuratively rather than literally, I hope); her first book, CURSE OF THE UNDEAD, was an anthology of vampire fiction. Her short fiction has appeared in SWORD & SORCERESS 5 and 20 as well as many other markets. Her first mass market novel, a vampire romance entitled EMBRACING DARKNESS, was published in March 2005 by Silhouette Intimate Moments. With her husband, retired Navy Captain Leslie Roy Carter, she has co-authored two fantasy novels, WILD SORCERESS and BESIEGED ADEPT, with a sequel in progress. For more information, visit Carter's Crypt: www.margaretlcarter.com.
This story, however, has nothing to do with vampires; instead it has one of the most unusual magicians I've ever encountered.
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A shadow-shrouded, foreboding stand of ancient trees blocked the road where the village of Meadowmill ought to be. The village that, according to the inhabitants of the last town up the road, had disappeared eight years before.
"I don't believe in vanishing villages," Liriel said to her partner Bertrice, mounted on the horse beside her own.
"You and me both," said Bertrice, a slim, blonde woman with hair cropped to just below her ears. Like Liriel, she wore plain leather armor instead of the flowing robes most people expected of mages. That costume might look impressive but wasn't very practical for riding through the countryside. "And I don't like that emanation of vague menace."
The raven perched on Liriel's saddle horn squawked in agreement. "As far as I'm concerned, it's downright offensive," Liriel said. "As if any halfway competent sorcerer couldn't scent the odor of magic in that overblown effect." She ran her fingers through her sweat-dampened shock of short, brown hair. "Notice anything odd about that patch of woods?"
"You mean, besides being older and denser than the rest of the forest we just rode through?" Bertrice waved at the sparsely scattered, second-growth trees on either side of the rutted lane. She shaded her eyes against the noonday glare. "It looks too regular, like the same six trees duplicated over and over."
"Which also screams 'magic' to me. Good observation. You'd make a fine illusionist."
Her friend laughed. "No, I'll leave that devious magic to you. Give me a nice, straightforward fireball or lightning bolt."
"Let's find out what Brom thinks of it." Sorcerous illusions fooled only human sight, not a bird's or animal's. "Fly ahead and tell us what you see," she told her familiar. Closing her eyes, she invoked the link between her mind and the raven's.
With a caw of acknowledgment, Brom launched himself into the air and flew straight ahead into the trees. But, as Liriel saw through his eyes, the dark, glowering trees weren't there. As she'd expected, the road continued unbroken except for the sunlight-dappled woods they'd traveled through all morning. She silently directed the bird to continue following the track. The trees thinned out until the road wound through a stretch of grassy meadow into a cluster of thatch-roofed houses. Brom flapped higher above the village and spotted the stream with the mill that gave the hamlet its name. She mentally called him to return to her.
"Just as we thought," she said after the bird alighted in front of her on the saddle. "The town's still there, behind that stage set of menacing forest."
Bertrice nudged her horse into a trot up to the edge of the supposed forest. "I've never seen an illusion of that size before. No offense meant to your talent, but could you do that?"
"Maybe for a few minutes." Liriel walked her own horse to the verge of the sorcerous mirage. "Whoever made this can maintain it permanently, judging from the disappearing village rumors. Amazing."
"I guess that's where we have to look for Lord Malkus."
Liriel sighed. "He should've listened to the locals and stuck to the main road. What possessed him to try a so-called shortcut, anyway?"
"I'd have expected him to take the long way home, if anything. If I had the Duke for a father, that's what I'd do."
With a rueful laugh, Liriel agreed.
She'd hoped finding the Duke's younger son, a month overdue for his expected return home from a routine diplomatic journey, would prove equally routine. With luck, it would have involved nothing more complicated than ambush by a band of outlaws or, best case, a side trip to dally with a compliant tavern maid. She pronounced a single word in the arcane tongue of spell-casters. Like the mouth of a tunnel, a gap appeared among the trees. Through it, she sighted the clear path Brom's reconnaissance had shown her. "We'd better leave the horses here."
She and Bertrice tethered their mounts under genuine trees surrounded by a patch of fresh grass. Liriel then cast invisibility on herself and her companion. The raven flew ahead of them, alighting on a tree limb every few minutes for the women to catch up.
As they drew near the village, they noticed shallow holes, each a couple of feet across, dug in the sward at irregular in
tervals. "What do you make of that?" Bertrice whispered.
"Can't imagine," said Liriel in the same low tone. Digging for water? With a stream running almost through the middle of town, the people would hardly need a well on the outskirts, not to mention that none of the holes delved deep enough for that purpose.
The houses they passed looked deserted. As they approached the village common, she heard a murmur of voices and realized most of the inhabitants must have gathered there. At the same time, she noticed an odd sensation. It took her a minute to identify it. The air had cooled. Instead of a midsummer day's sticky heat, Meadowmill enjoyed the mild climate of late spring. Even the scent of the air had changed to a floral aroma. "I think he's transmuted the weather," she murmured.
"Is that possible?" Bertrice's low-voiced question echoed her own amazement.
"I wouldn't have thought so, except in short bursts."
As soon as they reached the edge of the gathered crowd, she glimpsed Lord Malkus, unmistakable with his imposing height and golden hair. Standing with a group of people clustered near a long table, he didn't look like a captive. No shackles, no armsmen training weapons on him. Why had he lingered here? The next moment, though, her attention was diverted by a man trundling a wheelbarrow to the center of the square. He tipped the barrow to dump a load of dirt onto a blanket spread on the ground, already partly covered by several heaps of earth and uprooted turf.
Meanwhile, a woman upended a basket of leafy branches on the table.
A portly, gray-haired man dressed a bit more finely than most of the villagers held up a hand. "Enough. Stand back, everyone."
They obeyed, opening a circle around leaf-littered table and the blanket with its mounds of dirt. The people waited in expectant silence. What in the name of all gods was going on? Seconds later, she found out. A silvery glow shimmered over the cloth. When it faded, stacks of vegetables, fruits, and loaves of bread had replaced the soil and grass. The branches had changed to lengths of cloth.
Liriel heard a gasp escape from Bertrice. "Did I just see what I thought?"
"Yes, unless I've gone mad, too," Liriel whispered back. Renewed murmurs from the crowd, as people lifted the food onto the table and started handing it out, covered the slight noise of their conversation. "Somebody transmuted all that stuff at once."
"Which one did it? I don't sense magic emanating from any of them."
"Neither do I." Grasping Bertrice's hand to keep from getting separated, she led her partner around back of a nearby cottage. "We need to talk with Lord Malkus." She took a scrap of paper from her belt pouch and focused on it. In a situation like this, using magic to imprint words on the parchment was more convenient than pen and ink. The brief message read, "My lord: Your father sent us in search of you. Please meet us beside the mill stream as soon as you can. Liriel." When she folded the note and placed it in Brom's beak, it became visible.
The two women made their way to the other side of the village, where the mill stood. "Now we wait," Liriel said. "The people looked busy enough that Brom should be able to pass the note to Lord Malkus soon, and he can probably slip away while they're distributing the goods."
"Unless he's under a spell that limits his freedom."
"He didn't look entranced."
They didn't have long to wait, resting under a clump of willows, before the Duke's son came strolling along the stream bank. Liriel gestured to remove the invisibility spell. The young lord nodded to the two mages, who bowed in return. "A pleasure to see you," he said. "For all the good it'll do. You're most likely trapped here along with us."
The word "us" reminded Liriel of the two men who'd traveled with Lord Malkus. "Your squires are well, too?"
"They're fine. We all are. Nobody has offered us any violence. They just won't let us leave."
"How did you end up here?" Bertrice cast a nervous glance toward the village.
"Don't worry, they won't bother to follow me. After all, I can't go far. Simple enough, we were hunting a stag. It ran into that patch of dark woods you must have come through. We chased after, and here we are." He added with a grim chuckle, "The villagers were grateful enough for the venison."
"So why can't you leave?" Liriel asked, although she'd guessed the reason.
"Some kind of magical barrier. Whenever we get to the edge of that fake forest, we find ourselves heading back toward town. Blasted illusions." He snorted in disgust.
Liriel didn't take offense, having long since learned how most warriors viewed magic. Except when it became useful to them, of course, as the sorcery she practiced was to the Duke. She supposed she should be grateful that he'd kept them on as hirelings after the end of the border wars, when so many combatants, both armsmen and mages, had been cast adrift without employment. Still, both she and Bertrice were counting the days until they'd fulfilled their contract and saved enough to open a shop to sell potion ingredients and other arcane necessities. The suppliers of such items made better livings than most freelance sorcerers. Bertrice even had a prospective husband lined up, a fellow mage they'd become friendly with during the war. As for Liriel, she was holding out for a steadier sort, maybe a plain-spoken, earthbound merchant to manage their shop's accounts. She looked forward to settling into that peaceful life, with no more traveling hither and yon at the whim of an overlord. Well, that would come later. For now, she had to get Lord Malkus and themselves out of this trap.
"That performance on the common," she said. "It's happened before?"
"It's the routine here. Twice a week they pile up barrows full of dirt, rocks, and leaves to be turned into food and other goods. Folks bring requests for little things they need, and usually they get them. Not much meat, though. I've seen fish appear in the stream a couple of times, and once a flock of quail landed in the village square. Lured in, I guess. I didn't see them get changed from anything else."
"But who's doing all this?"
"I've never seen the wizard," Lord Malkus said. "Apparently nobody has since all this started, except his family. He's supposed to be the son of the miller, or the man who used to be miller when they had grain to grind—or needed to. People say the mage has been providing for them like this for almost eight years."
"That's when the spell cut the village off from the outside world?"
Lord Malkus shrugged. "So they say. Turned it into a pocket paradise, with perfect weather all year round. Even the rain cooperates. Falls only at night. They let the fields go fallow a long time ago, what with the mysterious wonder-worker filling all their needs."
"Why won't he show himself, I wonder?" Liriel said.
Bertrice nodded. "You'd think he'd want to enjoy his neighbors' gratitude."
That question, Liriel figured, could wait for an answer until they met the reclusive mage. "Well, our next step is obviously to call on the ex-miller."
"They don't live in the mill cottage anymore," Lord Malkus said. "The town council gave them a bigger house on the edge of the square."
"Then lead the way if you will, my lord. We'll be right behind you." Liriel once more veiled herself and Bertrice in the glamour of invisibility. She'd take no chances with such a powerful master of both illusion and transmutation. Gods only knew what other gifts he might have. He might cast fire and lightning that would render Bertrice's strongest spells as feeble as a child's tantrum by comparison. Any sorcerer who combined that degree of power with secretiveness had to be dangerous.
On the common, people continued to pass out baskets of food and bolts of cloth. She noticed some laying broken tools and worn shoes on the table, to be repaired by a burst of scintillating light. Good; with luck the sorcerer would be too preoccupied with his wonder-working to notice their approach. With such an opponent, surprise gave them their best hope of success. They followed Lord Malkus to one of the few dwellings built of wood and stone rather than wattle-and-daub. It had two full stories, another sign of prosperity by village standards. Why didn't the mage relocate to a great city, Liriel wondered, where his gif
ts could bring him and his family vast wealth?
The Duke's son hung back, obviously unwilling to get caught in the middle of a magical duel. Still invisible, she tried the front door and found it bolted from within. When she knocked, a male voice called, "Who's there?"
"Visitors. We'd like to talk to the wizard."
"I don't know you. Where did you come from?"
"Inhospitable, aren't they?" she murmured. With a muttered spell, she unlocked the bolt.
The moment the door swung open, a wordless scream of outrage sounded from above. "So much for surprise," she said. At the same instant, the invisibility spell dissolved.
Two men in the group on the village common spun around and ran toward the house. "Call the watch!" one of them shouted. A teenage boy hurried in the other direction, presumably to do just that. Both men brandished daggers.
Lord Malkus drew his sword to meet their charge. Several more people broke away from the crowd to join the melee. Malkus's two squires, whom Liriel had met before but didn't know well, also rushed over. They were brothers, both coppery-haired and freckled, one burly, one wiry.
The Duke's son and his squires held the first attackers at bay with their short swords, but others dodged around them, trying to seize the two mages. Bertrice chanted a spell, and a glowing sphere materialized around her and Liriel. The first man to make a grab for them stumbled back with a cry of pain, burned by a miniature spark of lightning.
"Inside!" Liriel pulled Bertrice over the threshold and slammed the door behind them. Bertrice's energy globe vanished. Liriel's stomach churned at the thought of how quickly the mysterious wizard negated their defenses.
A thin, balding man who stood beside the hearth in the combination parlor and dining room growled at them, "Who are you? Why are you barging into my home?" He picked up a piece of firewood and swung it like a club.
When he stomped toward her, Bertrice waved her hand to whip him with a gust of wind that knocked the wood out of his grip. A second later, a fiery dart shot from her fingers to ignite the logs stacked in the fireplace. "We want to see the wizard."
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXII Page 6