The Complete Lythande

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Will you teach me the magician’s art, lady?”

  “I will not,” said Lythande. “It has been little more than a liability to me. Heaven forbid I should lay that curse on any other.”

  “Thass easy said,” fretted the girl, “but you’re long-lived, I see; an’ I’d like makin’ me own choice in that, ma’am.”

  “You might find out—as I did—when it was too late, just what a heavy burden it is,” Lythande said. “But the day may come when I can apprentice you in a decent inn, as cook or house-maid, and leave you there. This town may be too small for that, but would you not like to be apprenticed to a sewing-woman or some such respectable trade?”

  “But I don’t want to leave you,” the girl stated, and Lythande sighed.

  “Don’t make me regret I saved you at that inn, after all. There was no obligation upon me to do so,” she said with some harshness. “If you traveled with me you would have much reason to know just how hard a life this pursuit of magic can be and how poor a trade it truly is. Just because you have picked up a little kitchen-magic does not make you a mage.”

  “No ma’am—”

  “And you must not to call me ma’am where you can be heard—remember that I travel in disguise, and if I am recognized as a woman I may be in grave trouble,” Lythande reminded her sternly. Thus chastised, Frennet fell silent, and they went on.

  They were now passing through the little village, and as if it were in answer to Lythande’s unspoken wishes, they passed an open square where something like a hiring-fair was in progress. Many men and women of the peasant-kind were lined up there: servant-maids with brooms or mops over their shoulders, farm hands with rakes or pitchforks, dairy-women each with a pail, and so forth. One of the more prosperous looking of the farmers saw Lythande with her companion, and came toward them.

  Here, be you a magician for hire?”

  “I am that,” said Lythande, “but it is for my companion I seek work. And—”

  “If ye’re lawfully for hire—”

  Lythande sighed; it was her own fault for showing herself at a hiring fair. “What can I do for you?”

  “I got wuzzles in me barn, Magician.”

  Lythande stared; this was a new one.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I have never encountered... what sort of creature may a wuzzle be?”

  “What? Don’t ye have wuzzles where ye come from?”

  “Indeed we do not, unless I know them by some other name.”

  “Oh well—they’s grey an’ fuzzy an’ they gets in my barn an’ they eats the grain—”

  “My dear fellow,” Lythande interrupted, “do you mistake me for an exterminator? Wouldn’t it be simpler—and cheaper—to get yourself a cat?”

  The farmer looked cross, but resigned, as if Lythande had made a mistake many times made before.

  “I didn’t say I had mice,” he said resignedly, “I said I had wuzzles. Don’t ye know the difference? They’s grey an fuzzy—an’ ten feet across—an’ they eats the grain an’ ye canna hardly see ’em.”

  Lythande sighed.

  “I beg your pardon, sir; I have never encountered a—what is it—a wuzzle—they are unknown in my country. I presume they are creatures of magic, then?”

  “I don’ know what they are,” said the farmer. “But I got ’em, an’ I wants them out’n me barn, see? An’ I’ll pay ye well to get rid of ’em.”

  Lythande sighed.

  “The fates have spoken,” she declared. “I had no intention of hiring myself out here as a magician; but where there is need I must give my services. Tell me, since I know nothing of wuzzles; how does one get rid of the creatures?”

  “Ye’re the magician, not me,” said the farmer truculently. “I thought sure ye’d know how to get rid o’ the things. I ain’t never had wuzzles before an’ I dun’na know nothin ’bout gettin’ rid o’ them.”

  Lythande reflected that she knew no more of getting rid of—what was it, wuzzles—than did the farmer; rather less, for at least he had known what they were. But he had spoken truly; Lythande was the magician, and she should know how to get rid of them.

  “I have never before encountered a wuzzle,” she stated, “nevertheless there may still be many surprises for me before the Last Day, and I can do no more than to attempt it.”

  If they were creatures which infested a farmer’s barn, she supposed a banishing-spell might be what was wanted. Following the farmer to his barn, she spoke a simple all-purpose banishing-spell which, she supposed, would rid the place of mice or of—what was it—wuzzles.

  That had been simple enough; but the farmer scowled.

  “Them wuzzles don’t like your spell, magician; I see they’s still here. I thought sure a great magician like to you could get rid of ’em for me.”

  “As I said before,” remarked Lythande, “I have never before encountered wuzzles. They are not known in my country; but I have engaged myself to rid your barn of wuzzles, and I will do so. But I must first consult my masters, and my books of magic.”

  This was easy enough to say; but if wuzzles would not yield to a banishing spell, she had really no idea how she would get rid of them. She had with her, in lieu of books of magic, only a small all-purpose spell guide; she was sure wuzzles were not listed, but at last, under infestation, she did find a listing for wuzzles as a common infestation. She was quite, quite sure the listing had never been there before, but that was the way it tended to be with magical books; they tended not to have a thing listed until the magician needed it.

  The remedy was listed as herbal banishing; and Lythande’s knowledge of herbal spells was not as great as that of some other remedies. She said, “Is there in this village a seller of herbs?”

  She would consult with him as to the remedy for wuzzles, if indeed such things were known hereabouts.

  “There is an herb-seller,” said the farmer warily. “I quarreled with him last winter; d’ye think it’s him set this thing on me?”

  “I do not know; I trust not,” said Lythande. “You know your neighbors better than I; I am a newcomer to these parts.” She thought to herself that the farmer looked not like one who would be on overly good terms with his neighbors; he looked a little too prosperous for that. And his truculent manner of speech was not such as to make him liked well. In fact, so Lythande thought, she did not like him at all, and did not blame his neighbors. Still, as she had promised, she must get rid of—what did he call them, wuzzles?—for the farmer, and it did not matter too much whether his personality pleased her, or not; she did not have to live with him.

  She adjourned then to the inn she had seen in the village and sent out Frennet to speak to the herb-seller for her. After a time the girl came back with her eyes aglow.

  “Well?”

  “Oh, yes. There is an herb-seller,” the girl enthused, “such a nice young men, too; tall an’ handsome—an’ he knows all about wuzzles. They used to be all over the place in his grandfer’s time. An’, an’ he says that old farmer isn’t liked by anyone, an’ it serves him right if he got wuzzles, or worse things—if so be there is worse things. He’s an’ old skinflint, he is; he’s known to keep back his grain till there’s famine, an’, an’ he sells it at cut-throat prices when folk go hungry, an’ sells it cheap so as to put folk out o’ business when there’s plenty. The herb-seller became a herb-seller because he couldn’ make a livin’ at the farming wi’ that old fellow around.”

  Then he may have set the wuzzles on him, Lythande thought, but she did not say so; short of recommending that the farmer find a way to live at peace with his neighbors, she had no part in local disputes. “Bid the herb-seller to come and see me,” she said.

  It was late in the day and the first sun, Reth, was just beginning to touch the horizon, when the herb-seller came to the inn. He came into Lythande’s presence, grinning and bowing, asking, “How may I serve my lord magician?”

  At least Frennet had not revealed her secret.

  “You kn
ow, then, how to rid the barn of wuzzles?”

  “Oh, aya, sir; ye burn candles made o’ herbs, an’ they goes elsewhere. They canna’ stand the smell o’ me magical herbs.

  She felt like asking him if he had set the wuzzles on his neighbor. But she supposed it did not matter. The last thing she wished for was to become entangled in the internal affairs of the village. Frennet was regarding the man with as much delight as if she had invented him. Lythande bought several packets of his magical herbs and paid him well for them, (though they made her sneeze, and she realized with dismay that she was allergic to either the magical herbs, or the wuzzles, or perhaps both). A sneezing magician is not much better than a stuttering one, she thought, and began grimly preparing to make the herbs into candles. This was a long affair; long before she finished, Frennet had gone to sleep peacefully on the floor, and Lythande, her nose dripping, resolved never again to entangle herself with an herb-seller, even if it meant she must learn a whole new method of magic.

  Frennet woke cheerfully, and admired the candles.

  “How pretty they are! I’ll go an’ tell the herb-seller what good use ye made of his herbs, shall I?”

  “Do what you please; but let’s get on with it, and get out of this accursed—ka-choo—town,” Lythande said grimly.

  “You caught a cold, ma’am—sir?” Frennet amended hastily, at Lythande’s glare. “Shall I get you a remedy from the herb-seller?”

  “No need,” growled Lythande. “Let’s just finish this up and get out of this town.” Frennet’s face fell; she obviously wanted to see the herb-seller again.

  Soon they sent a message to the farmer, asking him to join them in the infested barn.

  “I can clear your barn of the infestation of wuzzles,” she remarked. “But I cannot insure that it will stay free—ka-choo—and I admonish you that you should learn to live at peace with your neighbors.”

  Another explosive sneeze perforated her remarks and the farmer regarded Lythande without enthusiasm.

  “I’ll let ’em alone if they lets me alone,” he said.

  “That may not—ka-choo—be good enough,” Lythande warned. “I admonish you, forgive and forget, or something worse than wuzzles may come upon you.” The effect of these exhortations was a little diminished by another enormous sneeze. The farmer looked frankly skeptical now. However, as admonished by Lythande, he began to set out the candles in a ring around the inside of the barn, while Lythande busied herself inscribing a pentagram on the wooden floor.

  At last the herbal candles were set out in every point and valley of the pentagram, and Lythande, sneezing again, lighted the candles. The burning herbs, penetrating her offended nose, set off another paroxysm of sneezes, but she instructed the farmer to chase the wuzzles into the pentagram and proceeded to recite a banishing-spell.

  Pop! A wuzzle, as she recited the spell, winked out of existence, then another. With a series of little pops, each followed by a sneeze, one by one the wuzzles faded into another dimension, or into somewhere, not here.

  Soon they were all gone, and Lythande made haste to extinguish the candles.

  “They are gone,” she said, “now, I admonish you, find a way to live at peace with your neighbors, and every month, burn one of these candles.” She taught him a banishing spell, and when the old man was done growling about the fee, (“I could ha’ done that,” he grumbled) she returned to the inn for Frennet.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  Frennet looked sad. Abruptly Lythande knew what ailed her.

  “You wish to stay with this herb-seller.”

  “Well, an’ I do. He says he’ll teach me his herb-magic,” Frennet replied, and Lythande, sneezing again, realized that this was a perfect solution.

  “So be it,” she said, and Frennet babbled with delight.

  ~o0o~

  “If so be ye’d leave yer apprentice wi’ me,” the herb-seller said, “I can teach her all me herb-lore.”

  “So—” a vast sneeze punctuated Lythande’s words, “So be it.”

  “Ye better let me make you up a remedy for that—” Frennet sneezed, “that cold.”

  “I do not think it necessary,” Lythande said. “Only let me get out of this town” (and its herbs, and its wuzzles) “and all shall be well.”

  It was not nearly as easy as that; but by noon, Lythande turned her back on the little town, bidding goodbye to an ecstatic Frennet, burbling about having her own house and her own kitchen, once she was wedded to the herb seller.

  Lythande bade her an affectionate farewell, genuinely pleased that she had found a solution for the girl, who sneezed as she said farewell, and Lythande remembered she had sneezed as she said “so be it,” thus wishing sneezes upon her former traveling companion. Magic could be far too unpleasantly literal sometimes.

  Well, at least she had gotten rid of the wuzzles, and her own sneezing would stop soon; and the herb-seller could make his wife up a remedy her sneezing, for all the good it would do. He was not much of a magician.

  But for now she would put this town, and the wuzzles, as far behind her as possible.

  She went down the road, sneezing.

  The Virgin and the Volcano

  The mercenary-magician Lythande was sitting by the fire in the common room of the village’s only inn, playing the lute and singing in a clear light tenor voice for the assembled company—and also for supper. Between her love for music and her proximity to the fire, she didn’t notice when the fire elemental arrived.

  It was not until she stopped to rest her fingers and voice that she noticed the new additions to the inn’s company, when the innkeeper came to her and pointed out a woman seated at a table in a quiet corner. “Sir, the lady would like to buy you a drink.” His smirk made it obvious that he thought the “lady” was interested more in the man than the musician, but Lythande strongly suspected that it was neither. Eirthe Candlemaker was an old acquaintance, and, if she wanted Lythande for something, it was probably Lythande the magician that she was looking for.

  Lythande didn’t eat or drink in public, but she knew how to sit over a full tankard of ale for quite a long time, giving every impression of enjoying it. She joined Eirthe at the corner table, nodded thanks to the innkeeper for the ale, and waited until he was out of hearing. The fire elemental, a salamander named Alnath who had been with Eirthe as long as Lythande had known her, was concealed discreetly on Eirthe’s wrist, under her cloak,

  “Greetings, Eirthe,” Lythande said, as if they had last met yesterday, instead of nearly six years ago. “And Alnath,” as Alnath scrabbled along the bench to greet the magician, who was one of the very few people she would agree to touch. “Greetings, Essence of Fire.” Lythande said, stroking the salamander with a callused fingertip, while Alnath’s fire blazed cobalt blue with pleasure. “And how is Cadmon these days?”

  “He’s dead, Lythande,” Eirthe replied.

  “I see,” said Lythande quietly. “A most grievous loss for you indeed.” Cadmon, a glassblower, had been Eirthe’s partner, and Lythande was one of the few people who knew that Eirthe and Cadmon had become partners because each of them was under a curse, and their curses had canceled each other out. Cadmon made wonderful glassware, but anything put in it burned to vapor almost instantaneously. Eirthe made beautiful elegant tapers, as well as sculpted candles almost too real to burn, but the curse put on her was a cold spell; her fire wouldn’t burn and neither would her candles—unless they were put in one of Cadmon’s glasses. Together their products made a very safe lamp; if it was tipped over, the candle promptly went out. They had met each other eight years ago at a major trade fair, within hours of the time their respective curses were imposed, and had been good friends and partners ever since.

  Now, with Cadmon gone, Eirthe was discovering for the first time just how bad the curse on her was. “It isn’t that I’m about to starve,” she told Lythande. “Cadmon and I always knew that one of us might be alone some day, so we were very careful to save money. I don’t
need to work for the rest of my life as far as finances go, but what else am I to do? It’s not in my nature to sit around being useless! Without Cadmon to make glasses for the candles, there’s no point in my making candles, even when I can build a fire to melt the wax over. I can still get a fire to burn,” she explained, “but only in the fire pit Cadmon made me—which certainly isn’t much help on a cold night on the trail. I don’t even dare get too close to the fire here, for fear I’ll put it out! I’m cold all the time now, and it’s miserable!”

  “I can certainly see that it would be,” Lythande agreed. “So what brought you here?”

  “It was Alnath’s idea,” Eirthe explained. “She said that going to Heart of Fire—the volcano here—would help me.”

  “Did she say how?” Lythande inquired curiously.

  “Well, no,” Eirthe replied, “but who should know fire better than a fire elemental?”

  “There is a certain logic to that view,” the magician acknowledged. “You certainly have my sympathy, but I gather you require some more tangible assistance. What is it you want from me?”

  “I want to hire you to get me to the volcano’s cone. There’s some sort of barrier part way up the side of the mountain; I bumped into it this afternoon.”

  The blue star between Lythande’s brows furrowed with thought as the magician come to a decision. “There are many things to do while awaiting the Last Battle of Law and Chaos, and this may well be one of them. We’ll go have a look at this barrier first thing in the morning.”

  So the next morning Eirthe stood again in front of the barrier, with Alnath perched on her shoulder, and watched Lythande run a hand over its surface, then poke a fingertip through it. “I can’t say that I think much of this barrier, Eirthe,” Lythande remarked; “it’s the kind of thing I’d put up to keep sheep from wandering over a cliff.”