The Complete Lythande

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  And so it was time to bypass all the simpler lore of spells to bind and unbind, and proceed to the strongest unbinding-spell she knew. Unbinding-spells were not Lythande’s specialty—she seldom had cause to use them. But once she had inadvertently taken upon herself a sword spell-bonded to the shrine of Larith, and had never managed to unbind it, but had been forced to make a journey of many days to return the sword whence it had come; after which, Lythande had made a special study of a few strong spells of that kind, lest her curiosity, or desire for unusual experiences, lead her again into such trouble. She had held this one in reserve; she had never known it to fail.

  First she removed from her waist the twin daggers she bore. They had been spell-bonded to her in the Temple of the Blue Star, so that they might never be stolen or carelessly touched by the profane; the right-hand dagger for the dangers of a lonely road in dangerous country, whether wild beast or lawless men; the left-hand dagger for menaces less material, ghost or ghast, werewolf or ghoul. She did not wish to undo that spell by accident. She carried them out of range, or what she hoped would be out of range, set her pack with them, then returned to the lute and began the circlings and preliminary invocations of her spell. At last she reached the powerful phrases which could not be spoken save at the exact moment of high noon or midnight, ending with;

  “Uthriel, Mastrakal, Ithragal, Ruvaghiel, angels and archangels of the Abyss, be what is bound together undone and freed, so may it be as it was commanded at the beginning of the world; So it was, so it is, so shall it be and no otherwise!”

  Blue lightnings flamed from an empty sky; the Blue Star on Lythande’s forehead crackled with icy force that was almost pain. Lythande could see the lines of light about the lute, pale against the noonday glare. One by one, the strings of the lute uncoiled from the pegs and slithered to the ground. The lace holding Lythande’s tunic slowly unlaced itself, and the strip wriggled to the ground. The bootlaces, like twin serpents, crawled down the boots through the holes in reverse order, and writhed like live things to the ground. The intricate knot in her belt untied itself and the belt slithered away and fell..

  Then, slowly, the threads sewing her tunic at sides and shoulders unraveled, coming free stitch by stitch, and the tunic, two pieces of cloth, fell to the ground, but the process did not stop there; the embroidered braid with which the tunic was trimmed came unsewed and uncoiled bit by bit till it was mere scraps of thread lying on the grass. The side seams unstitched themselves, a little at a time, in the breeches she wore; and finally the sewn stitches of the boots crawled down the leather so that the boots lay in pieces on the ground, while Lythande still stood on the bootsoles. Only the mage-robe, woven without seam and spelled into its final form, maintained its original shape, although the pin came undone, the metal bending itself to slip free of its clasp, and clinked on the hard stones.

  Ruefully, Lythande gathered up the remains of clothing and boots. The boots could be resewn in the next town that boasted a cobbler’s shop, and there were spare clothes in the pack she had fortunately thought to carry out of reach. Meanwhile it would not be the first time a Pilgrim Adept had gone barefoot, and it was worth the wreck of the clothing to be freed of the accursed, the disgusting, the fantastic enchantment laid on that lute.

  It lay harmless and silent before the minstrel magician; a lute, Lythande hoped, like any other, bearing no magic but its own music. Lythande found a spare tunic and breeches in the pack, girded on the twin daggers once more (marveling at any spell that could untie the mage-knot her fingers had tied, by habit, on the belt) and sat down to re-string the lute. Then she went southward, whistling.

  ~o0o~

  At first Lythande thought the fierce pain between her brows was the glare of the noonday sunlight, and readjusted the deep cowl of the mage-robe so that her brow was shadowed. Then it occurred to her that perhaps the strong magic had wearied her, so she sat on a flat rock beside the trail and ate dried fruits and journey-bread from her pack, looking about to be sure she was unobserved except by a curious bird or two.

  She fed the crumbs to the birds, and re-slung her pack and the lute. Only when she had traveled half a mile or so did she realize that the sun was no longer glaring in her eyes and that she was traveling northward again.

  Well, this was unfamiliar country; she might well have mistaken her way. She stopped, reversed her bearings and began to retrace her steps.

  An hour later, she found herself traveling northward again, and when she tried to turn toward Old Gandrin and the southlands the racking queasiness and pain were more than she could bear.

  Damn the hedge-wizard who gave me that spell! Wryly, Lythande reflected that the curse was probably redundant. Turning northward, and feeling, with relief, the slackening of the pain of the binding-spell, Lythande resigned herself. She had always wanted to see the city of Northwander: there was a college of wizards there who were said to keep records of every spell which had ever wrought its magic upon the world. Now, at least, Lythande had the best of reasons for seeking them out.

  But her steps lagged resentfully on the northward road.

  There was no sign of city, village or castle. In even a small village she could have her boots resewn—she must think up some good story to explain how they had come undone—and in a larger city she might find a spell-candler who might sell her an unbinding-spell.

  Though, if the powerful spell she had already used did not work, she was unlikely to find a workable spell this side of Northwander and the college of wizards.

  She had come down from the mountain and was traversing a woody region, damp from the spring rains, which gradually grew wetter and wetter underfoot till Lythande’s second-best boots squelched and let in water at every step. At the edges of the muck-dabbed trail were soggy trees and drooping shagroots covered in hanging moss.

  I cannot believe that the lute means to lead me into this dismal bog, thought Lythande, but when, experimentally, she tried to reverse direction, the queasiness and pain returned. Indeed, the lute was leading her into the bog, farther and farther until it was all but impossible to distinguish between the soggy path and the mire to either side.

  Where can the accursed thing be taking me? There was no sign of human habitation anywhere, nor any dwellers but the frogs who croaked off-key in dismal minor thirds. Was she indeed to sup tonight with the frogs and crocodiles who might inhabit this dreadful place? To make matters worse, it began to drizzle—though it was already so wet underfoot that it made little difference to the supersaturated ground—and then to rain in good earnest.

  The mage-robe was impervious to the damp, but Lythande’s feet were soaked in the mud, her legs covered with mud and water halfway to the knees, and still the lute continued to lead her farther into the mire. It was dark now; even the mage’s sharp eyes could no longer discern the path, and once she measured her length on the ground, soaking what garments remained dry under the mage-robe. She paused; intending, first to make a spell of light, and then to find some sort of shelter, even if only under a dry bush, to wait for light and sunshine and, perhaps, dry weather.

  I cannot believe, she thought crossly, that the lute has in sober truth led me into this impassable marsh! What sort of enchantment is that?

  She had come to a standstill, and was searching in her mind for the most effective light-spell, wishing that she, like Eirthe, had access to a friendly fire-elemental to supply not only light but heat, when a glimmer showed through the murky darkness, and strengthened momentarily. A hunter’s campfire? The cottage of a mushroom-farmer or a seller of frogskins or some such trade which could be carried on in this infernal sloshing wilderness?

  Perhaps she could beg shelter there for the night. If this infernal lute will permit. The thought was grim. But as she turned her steps toward the light, there was the smallest of sounds from the lute, Satisfaction? Pleasure? Was this, then, some part of Tashgan’s appointed rounds? She did not admire Ellifanwy’s taste, if the old sorceress had indeed set this as a part o
f the lute’s wandering.

  She plodded on through the mire at such a speed as the sucking bog underfoot would allow, and after a time came to what looked like a cottage, with light spilling through the window. Inside the firelight was almost like the light of a fire-elemental, which came near to searing Lythande’s eyes; but when she covered them and looked again, the light came from a perfectly ordinary fire in an ordinary fireplace, and by its glow Lythande saw a little old lady, in a gown of bottle-green, after the fashion of a few generations ago, with a white linen mutch covering her hair, pottering about the fire.

  Lythande raised her hand to knock, but the door swung slowly open, and a soft sweet voice called but, “Come in, my dear; I have been expecting you.”

  The star on Lythande’s brow prickled blue fire. Magic, then, nearby, and the little old lady was a hearth-witch or a wise-woman, which could explain why she made her home in this howling wilderness. Many women with magical powers were neither liked nor welcomed among mankind. Lythande, in her male disguise, had not been subjected to this, but she had seen it all too often during her long life.

  She stepped inside, wiping the moisture from her eyes. Where had the little old lady gone? Facing her was a tall, imposing, beautiful woman, in a gown of green brocade and satin with a jeweled circlet in the satiny dark curls. Her eyes were fixed, in dismay and disbelief, on the lute and on Lythande. Her deep voice had almost the undertone of a beast’s snarl.

  “Tashgan’s lute! But where is Tashgan? How did you come by his instrument?”

  “Lady, it is a long story,” Lythande said, through the burning of the Blue Star which told her that she was surrounded by alien magic, “and I have been wandering half the night in this accursed bog, and I am soaked to the very skin. I beg of you, allow me to warm myself at your fire, and you shall be told everything; there is time for the telling of many long tales before the final battle between Law and Chaos.”

  “And why should you curse my chosen home, this splendid marsh?” the lady said, with a scowl coming between her fine-arched brows, and Lythande drew a long breath.

  “Only that in this—this blessed expanse of bog and marsh and frogs I have becomes drenched, muddied, and lost,” she said, and the lady gestured her to the fire.

  “For the sake of Tashgan’s lute I make you welcome, but I warn you, if you have harmed him, slain him or taken his lute by force, stranger, this is your last hour; make, therefore, the best of it.”

  Lythande went to the fire, pulled off the mage-robe and disposed it on the hearth where the surface water and mud would dry; removed the sodden boots and stockings, the outer tunic and trousers, standing in a linen under-tunic and drawers to dry them in the fire-heat. She was not too sure of customs this near to Northwander, but she surmised that the man she appeared to be would not, for modesty’s sake, strip to the skin before a strange woman, and that custom of modesty safeguarded her disguise.

  Lythande could—briefly, when she must—cast over herself the glamour of a naked man; but she hated doing it, and the illusion was dangerous, for it could not hold long, and not at all, she suspected, in the presence of this alien magic.

  The lady, meanwhile, busied herself about the fire—in a way, Lythande thought as she watched her out of the corner of her eye, better fitted to the little old lady she had first appeared to be. When Lythande’s under-tunic stopped steaming, she hung the outer clothing to dry over a rack, and dipped up soup from a kettle, cut bread from a crusty loaf, and set it on a bench before the fire.

  “I beg of you, share my poor supper; it is hardly worthy of a great magician, as you seem to be, but I heartily make you welcome to it.”

  The vows of an Adept of the Blue Star forbade Lythande to eat or drink in the sight of any man; however, women did not fall under the prohibition, and whether this was the little old hearth-witch she had first surmised, or whether the beautiful lady put on the hearth-witch disguise that she might not be easy prey for such robbers or beggarly men as might make their way into the bog, she was at least woman. So Lythande ate and drank the food, which was delicious; the bread had the very texture and scent she remembered from her half-forgotten home country.

  “My compliments to your cook, lady; this soup is like to what my old nanny, in a far country, made for me when I was a child.” And even as she spoke, she wondered; is it some enchantment laid on the food?

  The lady smiled and came to sit on the bench beside Lythande. She had Tashgan’s enchanted lute in her arms, and her fingers strayed over it lovingly, bringing small kindly sounds. “You see in me both cook and feaster, servant and lady; none dwells here but I. Now tell me, stranger with the Blue Star, how came you by Tashgan’s lute? For if you took it from him by force, be assured I shall know; no lie can dwell in my presence.”

  “Tashgan made me a free gift of the lute,” Lythande said, “and to my best knowledge he is well, and lord of Tschardain; his brothers perished, and he returned to his home. But first he must free himself of the enchantment of the lute, which had other ideas as to how he should spend his time. And this is the whole of the tale, lady.”

  The lady sniffed, a small disdainful sniff. She said, “And for that, being a little lord in a little palace, he gave up the lute? Freely, you say, and unforced? A minstrel gave up a lute enchanted to his measure? Stranger, I never thought Tashgan a fool!”

  “The tale is true as I have told it,” said Lythande. “Nor is the lute such a blessing as you might think, lady, for in that world out there beyond the—the blessed confines of this very marsh, minstrels are given less honor than lords or even magicians. And freedom to wander whither one wills is perhaps even more to be desired than being at the mercy of a wandering lute.”

  “Do you speak with bitterness, minstrel?”

  “Aye,” said Lythande with heartfelt truth, “I have spent but one summer wandering at the behest of this particular lute, and I would willingly render it to anyone who would take its curse! Tashgan had twelve years of that curse.”

  “Curse, you say?”

  The lady sprang up from the bench; her eyes glared like coals of fire at Lythande, fire that curled and melted about her with sizzling heat; fire that glowed and flared and streamed upward like the wings of a fire-elemental.

  “Curse, you say, when it brought Tashgan yearly to my dwelling?”

  Lythande stood very still. The heat of the blue star was painful between her brows. I do not know who this lady may be, or what, she thought, but she is no simple hearth-witch.

  She had laid aside her belt and twin daggers; she stood unprotected before the anger and the streaming fire, and could not reach the dagger which was effective against the creatures of enchantment. Nor, she thought, had it come yet to that.

  “Madam, I speak for myself; Tashgan spoke not of curse but of enchantment. I am a Pilgrim Adept, and cannot live except when I am free to wander where I will. And when Tashgan could not linger as long beneath your gracious roof and accept your hospitality as long as his heart might desire; and I doubt not he found that a kind of curse.”

  Slowly the fire faded, the streamers of blue dimming out and dying, and the lady shrank to a normal size and looked at Lythande with a smile that was still arrogant but had a kind of pleased simper to it.

  In the name of all the probably nonexistent Gods of Old Gandrin, what is this woman? For woman she is, and like all women vain and greedy for praise, Lythande thought with scorn.

  “Be seated, stranger, and tell me your name.”

  “I am Lythande, a Pilgrim Adept of the Blue Star, and Tashgan gave me this lute that he might return to become Lord of Tschardain. I am not to blame for his folly, that he willingly forwent the chance of beholding again your great loveliness.” And even as she spoke Lythande had misgivings, could any woman actually swallow such incredible flattery? But the woman—or was she a powerful sorceress?—was all but purring.

  “Well, his loss is his own choice, and it has brought you here to me, my dear. Have you then Tashgan’s
skill with the lute?”

  That would not take much doing, thought Lythande, but said modestly that of this, only the Lady must be the judge. “Is it your desire that I play for you, Madam?”

  “Please. But shall I bring you wine? Tashgan, dear boy, loved the wine I serve.”

  “No, no wine,” Lythande said. She wanted her wits fully about her. “I have dined so well, I would not spoil that taste in memory. Rather I would enjoy your presence with my mind undimmed by the fumes of wine,” she added, and the lady beamed.

  “Play, my dear.”

  Lythande set her fingers to the lute, and sang, a love-song from the distant hills of her homeland.

  A single sweet apple clings

  to the top of the branch;

  The pickers did not forget

  But could not reach;

  Like the apple, you are not forgotten,

  But only too high and far from my hands.

  I long to taste that forbidden sweetness.

  Lythande looked up at last at the woman by the fire. Well, she had done a foolish thing; she should have sung a comic ballad or a tale of knightly and heroic deeds. This was not the first time she had seen a woman eager for more than flirtation, thinking Lythande a handsome young man. Was that one of the qualities of the enchantment of the lute, that it inspired woman hearers with desire for the player? Judging by what had happened on this journey, she would not be at all surprised.

  It grows late,” said the Lady softly, “time for a night of love such as I often shared with Tashgan, dear lad.” And she reached out to touch Lythande lightly on the shoulder; Lythande remembered the farmer’s wife. A woman rejected could be dangerous.

  Lythande mumbled “I could not presume so high; I am no Lord but a poor minstrel.”

  “In my domain,’ said the lady, “minstrels are honored above princes or lords.”

  This was too ridiculous, Lythande thought. She had loved women; but if this woman had been Tashgan’s mistress, she would not seek among women for a lover. Besides, Lythande was not happy with the thought of Tashgan’s leavings.