Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXV

by contributors, various

  Lionel tended the horse, sat down, and handed Cinnabar her sword. He leaned against her, guarding her back with his own. She rested against him, feeling the solidness of his body, the movement of his breathing.

  Beyond the eastern ridge, dawn waited, an hour away.

  Cinnabar folded her arms around her knees and let her head drop forward. She drifted on the darkness until she found herself moving through a cavern. Ahead, a sphere glowed blue, casting shadows on walls like motionless streams of ice. A man bent over the shining globe. Then, in the way of dreams, he disappeared in a burst of searing brilliance and a drift of crystal shards. Cinnabar stood alone in the cavern as the light faded.

  * * * *

  They emerged from the canyon into a range of hills, continuing northeast. Ahead, a solitary mountain blotted out half the sky. It was a volcano, dead and hollow. Deep crevices gouged the rock face.

  Before long, they spotted an opening, partly hidden by splintered rock. Cinnabar stripped the mare's tack, setting aside her sword, and a little food and water. She hid the saddle behind the rocks.

  She laid her cheek against the flatness of the mare's jaw. Flame's blessing on thee, my friend.

  The mare regarded her calmly, then blew through her nostrils and bent her head to search out the scattered clumps of dried grass.

  Cinnabar tucked her sword through her belt, picked up her share of the supplies, and began to climb.

  * * * *

  Cinnabar paused before the opening, a triangular gash. Clawed paw prints stippled the powdery dirt. When Lionel touched her shoulder, she nodded and slipped through the rocky cleft.

  Watery sunlight followed them a short way inside. The sandy path became a ramp of wide stairs. Below them lay velvet darkness.

  They kept to one side, feeling their way. The mountain hung above their heads, immeasurably ancient. The air grew stale and moist. From time to time, Cinnabar heard the drip-drip-drip of water. She made out ghostly patches of green and mustard yellow on the walls below.

  Some time later, they spotted a glow, a shimmering like the reflection of silver on water. As they grew nearer, it brightened. The passageway broadened, and they found themselves on the threshold of a vast, blue-lit cavern. Icicles of stone hung from the roof and droplets of moisture dripped from their tips. A sluggishly flowing stream cut across the floor. The mountain might have once been a volcano, but water, with its soft, inexorable power, had reworked what fire had begun.

  Slowly they made their way past eerie stone mushrooms and columns of translucent crystal. Cinnabar touched Lionel's arm and pointed ahead. Between two pillars, she glimpsed a regular pattern of slats. They resembled enormous ribs, but not from any creature she knew. They gleamed with a metallic sheen.

  A table of stone bore a luminescent sphere set on an elaborate stand, the ball of light from Cinnabar's vision. Its cold, burning light fell on the rack of bones. In addition to ribs, she made out an intricately curved pelvis, flat scapulae, and the long, angular bones of lower limbs. The skeleton appeared complete, or nearly so. In life, the creature would have stood perhaps fifteen feet high, but it had been posed crouched, head lowered, as if bending over some invisible prey.

  Cinnabar's eyes traced its length, from the tapered skull with its serrated fangs along the vertebral column to the curving, keel-like sternum, the taloned forefeet...

  Then she spied movement near the hind limbs. A man crouched there. He wore a tattered cape over a simple tunic, like farmer's clothing. He was stirring something, his elbows jabbing outward with the vigor of his movements. He straightened up, revealing a cauldron of glass, filled with something that glowed orange and crimson, touched with yellow foam.

  A shadow wolf staggered out from behind a rocky excrescence, its rat-thin tail tucked between its hind legs. Its legs gave out, but it continued struggling, dragging itself. Although it made no sound, Cinnabar thought it must be in agony, for its belly was so distended that any moment it might burst.

  The old man—the wizard—Dherim—pointed one finger at the tight-stretched skin. A line of colorless light appeared. Wisps of smoke issued from the incision. The beasts's hide split, revealing a melon-sized sphere that glowed orange and red amid the darker, natural organs. The body jerked, legs quivering, and then lay still. Dherim slid his hands into the beast's belly and removed the sphere, carried it to the cauldron, and dropped it in. Then he went back to stirring.

  Sickened, Cinnabar drew back. Lionel stood behind her and she pressed against him. He stood firm, although his breath came in short bursts. Cinnabar reached out with her free hand and grasped his.

  Dherim apparently finished his work at the cauldron. He picked up a mason's trowel and scooped up a great shimmering blob. Chanting, he began applying the stuff from the cauldron to the skeleton.

  The jelly darkened, thickening. It spanned the empty spaces, growing more solid with every passing moment. Iridescent scales formed on the new skin, shading to dappled paleness along the belly. The spinal ridges glinted in the blue light.

  There are no dragons in the world, Cinnabar thought. They all died long ago. The years turned their bones to stone.

  Dherim chanted even louder now. His words reverberated from the cavern walls so that each phrase was distorted by the echoes of the one before.

  A ripple passed through the reptilian body, a faint, barely detectable shudder.

  Gesturing for Lionel to follow, Cinnabar circled the mound of rock. Together they crept forward.

  The creature's neck straightened. Eyes rolled in the ancient sockets. They caught the light. The mouth gaped, a maw of darkness. Slowly the creature turned towards her.

  With all her skill and power, Cinnabar swung her sword at Dherim's unprotected neck. At this distance, she couldn't miss.

  She didn't miss.

  Her blade sliced through emptiness.

  Roaring filled her ears. She looked up. The dragon-thing loomed above her, jaws spread wide.

  Lionel's boots clattered over stone. He yelled something she couldn't understand. Then came a sickening thwap! of flesh against stone and the skitter-clatter of steel.

  Eyes shone like twin suns and breath engulfed her, colder than the grave. Yet Cinnabar felt no fear. Whatever this beast had been, it wasn't a dragon.

  There are no dragons in the world, she repeated to herself, only in men's hearts...

  Cinnabar lifted her sword to the lumbering giant, more in salute than fighting stance. The reptile waited, unmoving except for its yellow eyes. Its head tilted, in recognition perhaps, or in remembrance. Somewhere in all that horror was a piece of a creature that had once walked the earth, even as she did, that had hungered and thirsted and mated and died.

  The once-terrifying creature now seemed pathetic, destitute. It belonged nowhere, forever cut off from its own kind, its own world, even the peace of a natural ending. The wizard could give it only a parody of life. It would never feel the sun on its back, never go where it willed.

  This cavern would be its whole world and Dherim, its master. It would live on and on, doing his bidding. Pain and death would be its only companions.

  Summoning her courage, Cinnabar lifted one hand to the giant reptile. The hide was cool under her touch, the scales like discs of metal.

  The great beast's breathing slowed. It sank lower, dipping its head until its eyes were level with hers. The vertically slit pupils dilated. Cinnabar could read no expression in those eyes, but she felt the creature's wordless pleading.

  Flame's blessing on thee. The words rang through her mind with the certainty of mountains and the clarity of a moonlit sky. Go now to thy rest.

  "Stop!"

  The wizard stood within the circle of Cinnabar's guard. Behind his shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Lionel, sprawled on the stone floor where Dherim had tossed him. His sword had fallen beside him, a ribbon of brightness. There was no sign of blood.

  Fingers like claws clamped on her shoulder. Her muscles went slack. She tried to angle sideways, t
wisting into the weakness of his grip, but her body wouldn't move. Numbness seeped into her. Her knees gave way, but she hardly felt the impact as she fell.

  The wizard twisted his grip, forcing Cinnabar to look up at him. She struggled, even as her body yielded to his unspoken command.

  Eyes like carbuncles stared into her own, surrounded by skin as soft as dust, folded into a thousand pleats, draped over bones like ridges of stone.

  "What's this?" Dherim spoke. "Some dirty little barbarian wench engaging in heroics, dragging its miserable carcass halfway across the world on some lunatic quest?"

  At his words, Cinnabar couldn't see anything but those bottomless eyes, couldn't feel anything, not even the dagger imprints of his fingers.

  "There's more here than just one paltry savage. It touched something," he said, as if thinking aloud. "Yes, it feels like those numbskulls at Qwai-at-the-Linn. I thought they'd withered away into the nothingness they so richly deserved." He turned his full attention back to Cinnabar. "Why are you here?"

  Black eyes pressed her with the weight of the mountain. Cinnabar's lips moved without her command. "You— you must be stopped."

  "You think me evil, do you? I keep to my mountain, disturbing no one. I don't wage war on what insignificant neighbors I have. There's nothing of any conceivable interest for me in the outside world. All I ask is that I be left in peace to continue my work."

  Cinnabar's mouth dropped open, but no words came.

  "What do mortal men desire? Riches, power, long life?" Dherim said, as much to himself as to her. "And when the riches no longer delight, when the power runs stale, when all the years seem no more than dust, what then? The secrets of the universe, the mastery of magic? What are they compared to the creation of life itself, the ultimate triumph over death? For what other goal do men sweat and strain and measure out their days, if not for this? You think yourselves so important—you and that lump of meat on the ground. But you are mayflies, all!"

  His gaze rested on the motionless dragon. "What are mayflies for, but to be used in a greater service?"

  Cinnabar wrenched against his grasp with renewed determination, searching for an opening, any small weakness.

  "You have no idea of the annoyance you've caused me," said Dherim. "Delayed this dragon's imprinting, disrupted the alchemical amalgam. I'll have to construct more Gatherers and send them even farther afield. They've stripped the immediate countryside. It'll take years to gather enough vital-energy to try again. At least," with a chilling glitter of those eyes, "at least, I can begin with yours."

  Nothing had ever filled Cinnabar with more terror. She had nowhere to hide, nothing to fight with. Her sword lay useless. Her will had shredded to tatters, tatters that her new master would weave into whatever shape he willed. No Fire answered her fading plea. Desolation filled her mouth like ashes.

  Dherim reached for her—

  "Let her go!"

  Lionel stood there, sword in hand. His face contorted with passion and fury. He lunged forward, swinging his heavy blade with all his strength.

  Dherim swerved out of reach of Lionel's sword. Cinnabar, released, darted away to snatch up her sword. The wizard extended his hands, jabbing the darkness. Something invisible, like a wall of solid rock, slammed into Cinnabar.

  For an awful moment, she couldn't move, couldn't see. Her breath locked like ice in her lungs. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she heard screaming.

  "No..."

  The word came as a moan, the voice laced with desperation. Lionel was still on his feet, but wavering, clutching his sword. Face twisted in horror, he stumbled forward. His knees flexed and his shoulders tensed as he brought the sword up.

  Dherim barked out a word.

  Lionel's body stiffened. Air hissed through his clenched teeth. The muscles in his neck stood out like cords. His sword quivered in his hands.

  Cinnabar remembered Lionel's story, how as a child, his father had brought him to stand before Dherim. How the wizard had touched him and he'd felt the wrongness of it.

  Dherim pointed at Cinnabar. "Kill her!"

  Lionel hurled himself at her, swinging wildly. She swerved and parried, using his own momentum to send him stumbling.

  She whirled to face him, searching for a way to end the fight. She could kill him. His moves were desperate, those of a man without thought to his own life. A stroke could lay open his unguarded side or sever his hamstrings.

  "Dherim!" she screamed. "Let him go or by the Flame, the next blood that flows will be yours!"

  Dherim's laugh sounded like the crack of splitting stone.

  Lionel began circling for an opening. His sword was steady now, his tread firm. Cinnabar couldn't see his eyes. He slashed at her, taking advantage of his sword's greater reach. She spun away, using her own blade to deflect his. Steel shrieked against steel.

  "Lionel, he's making you do this! Don't give in! Fight him!"

  Again they clashed, and this time Lionel no longer swung mindlessly. Within the depths of his eyes, a mad red light flamed. He fought with precision, using his strengths. The leading edge of his sword missed her belly by a breath.

  Lionel pressed the moment, lunging for her. He had the advantage of weight and muscular power.

  Even as she danced away from the next attack, Cinnabar heard Dherim's renewed laughter. "An amusing sight, barbarian, but how long can you can keep this up? How long before your speed fades? How long before your injured leg fails at some crucial moment? A single misstep means your death. How amusing it will be to watch!"

  More laughter, louder now and edged with madness, rang out in the darkness.

  "You are a tenacious little bitch, I'll grant you that. Under that loathsome exterior, you present interesting possibilities. Perhaps I won't let him kill you, after all. Perhaps I'll make something of you—half woman, half dragon..."

  Cinnabar gathered her breath, calling out with all the urgency and passion she could summon. "Lionel! Fight him!"

  Lionel froze. His face contorted, teeth showing between his drawn-back lips. The point of the sword dropped, as if he'd lost the strength to wield it.

  "Fight!" Cinnabar's voice came almost in a sob. "Fight him!"

  "Kill!" Dherim bellowed.

  Lionel's skin turned inhumanly pale in the mage-light. Sweat gleamed on his face. His gaze locked with Cinnabar's. She caught a flicker of triumph in his eyes and knew that, for this one instant, he'd broken free. His body trembled with the effort.

  Before she understand what he meant to do, he smiled. He reversed the sword, holding the blade with his bare hands. The next instant he thrust it underneath his ribs, angled upwards.

  With an inarticulate cry, Lionel threw himself forward. The fall drove the sword through his body.

  Cinnabar started towards him, although she knew it was too late.

  Dherim shouted, hoarse unintelligible syllables. Bitter-cold air slammed into Cinnabar. She doubled over, too stunned to draw breath.

  Light the color of freshly spilled blood, the color of life and death, filled the cavern. It washed over the stone table and Lionel's fallen body. It touched the dragon-thing.

  The great beast tilted its head back and roared.

  Fire and Fate!

  Rage exploded through Cinnabar. Flame burst from her heart, leaping hotter and higher than mortal fire. She threw herself open to it, willing herself to be burned as tinder, consumed by a storm that would engulf Dherim and all his work. She held nothing back. She filled herself with every moment of remembered fury, every human passion.

  Behind her eyes, an image shimmered through the inferno of her fury. The Form of Fire shaped itself into a bird. Its wings spread wide, each feather tipped with molten gold, eyes shining with inhuman jubilation. For a moment it hovered, drinking in the flames.

  Then its body shifted, elongating. The beak disappeared into a fanged snout framed by jewel-tipped whiskers. Feathered wings became delicate membranes, stretched wide on a framework of bone. A long, undulating neck
tapered to a sinuous body, covered with scales of opalescent sheen, outlined with crimson and gemstones—ruby, emerald, sapphire, and topaz, droplets of purest color. Eyes smoldered like eternal embers, set in the wedge-shaped head.

  A dragon, yes! But this was not of Dherim's creation. This was a creature of power and freedom, answering to no man's will.

  The dragon rose to its full height and the ceiling of the cavern melted away before it. Its wings unfurled to span the night. Stars swam in milky glory, resonating with the dragon's song. Rivers danced, reflecting silvered moonlight. The earth turned in its endless perfect circle.

  Behind Cinnabar's eyes, the last of the flames died. The earth turned again, the seasons turned, and the moment of passion was spent.

  The dragon shape faded.

  For a moment, Cinnabar felt only stillness and drifting ashes. Then, miraculously, her vision filled with the images of tender green shoots poking above soil, dark and wet with melted snow, of butterfly wings unfolding, of vines and tendrils curling towards the sun.

  Buds swelled. New leaves opened. Badgers stirred in their dens. On their nests, birds ruffled their feathers. Deer stepped from their thickets.

  On the high plains, mares heavy with foal spread their nostrils to scent the new grass. Goats lifted their heads, fodder trailing from their jaws, bellies ponderous with young. Bees hummed in their sleep.

  Heaven and nature, magic and life... two sides of the same coin, one unified whole.

  Cinnabar felt herself once more in a human body. Power surged through her, engorging her. Within the curve of her belly, in the primal darkness of her womb, a new life pulsed.

  "Yes!" Dherim's voice called out. "The source—infinite vital-energy! It comes when you call!"

  His fingers glowed with magic, hoarded over the years. "I've searched so long for it... Now, now it comes to me!"

  Cinnabar regarded this pathetic spider of a man. She felt the years alone in the dark, lost to sun and sky, with only his own dragon-seeds for comfort. She saw him, eaten away from within. Whatever drove him—hatred, lust, greed—it had long since burned out, leaving only a hollow shell.