The green sparks of the eyes went out. Hardly believing in her good fortune, Lythande sheathed the broken dagger. Well, she thought, while I am having my sandals cobbled, I must also find some weapons-maker who can attempt to replace the magical dagger. And while she was at it she must somehow find herself a spell-candler who could fashion some stronger spells. There was an old adage—and Lythande had never yet known it to be wrong, but there was a first time for everything—that for every magical danger there was somewhere a spell to conquer it. But, thought Lythande pessimistically, it did not follow that she could find that spell.
She took a careful backward look. No, there was nothing—as yet—following her.
But then—would she know?
A short time later she entered the common room of the inn, and when she was greeted with many questions, told them briefly that the beast was gone, “so far as I know; bearing in mind that I am neither a God, nor yet infallible.”
They would have loaded her with their best, and Lythande was tempted. But she had learned it was not well to let commoners, no matter how grateful, diminish her mystery, so she thanked them courteously and went out into the rain, finding a little way down the road a snug barn where she slept warm, dry, and unseen. When she emerged, after breakfasting on an egg she found in a deserted nest and ate raw—no hardship this, for she liked it better that way—and taking a cup of milk from a complaisant cow, who reacted better than most to her soothing-spells, she turned her steps toward the village in search of a cobbler for her broken shoes and a spell-wright for the remnants of her magical dagger and the renewal of her arsenal of spells. This was not an unpleasant task, for it gave her a chance to speak freely with her only true peers, who were other magicians. She slept that night in the home of a local hearth-witch, who thought of it as an honor to entertain an Adept of Lythande’s rank, but when, emerging well-pleased, for the bargaining for the mending of her shoes had gone well, and returning to the inn to hear the local gossip, she heard with dismay and consternation that the thing was back, more virulent than ever.
“And it seems to have thrived on your banishing-spells,” said the innkeeper maliciously, “for this time it has not only taken sheep, but two of the shepherd’s dogs and the shepherd as well.”
After the first shock of dismay, for it was rare indeed that her spells should fail, Lythande managed to collect herself, saying with apparent insouciance that she had promised results and she would therefore certainly deliver them. And then, as soon as she was unobserved, she sat down to think it over.
This vampire was dead. Well, of course, all vampires were dead by definition, and whatever she had done, she had told them she could not kill the dead—and in truth she had failed to do so. How could she then make good on her promise to rid them of the creature—or whatever it was?
She took out her small book of spells and opened it at random. She had often noticed that any particular spell she wanted would not be in the book till she was most in need of it. It did not disappoint her; the first spell on which her eyes fell was one to bring the dead back to life. At first Lythande was dismayed; the last thing she wanted to do was to bring this thing to life again. Then she stopped to think. She had said she could not kill the dead and thus—by the curious laws of magic—had defined the grounds on which this battle was to be fought. Her attempts to do away with the dead had failed. Was it then required of her that she should bring it to life so she could kill it?
There was nothing for it but to try. The magician went out again into the darkening fields, awaiting the coming of the magical creature. As soon as its wicked green eyes appeared at the edge of the field, only a little fainter than they had been before, Lythande began to repeat the spell which would bring the dead to life.
As soon as she began the eyes were arrested, held motionless in the thick darkness. Like twin green torches they glared at Lythande, and from somewhere—perhaps between the worlds—came the sound of a despairing whine. Then all was silent and in the magical greenish glow Lythande could see the form of a man stretched on the ground. She should have known; if this spell awakened the dead to life, it would of course restore him in the form he had worn in life.
She had her magical dagger—the new one, not the old broken one—in her hand ready. She struck, then—a fraction of a second too late—remembered that this was, at the moment, no longer a magical creature.
Swiftly she spoke a spell rendering the air void of all magic. The last thing she wanted was to strike with her dagger of ordinary steel, and find that she was again facing a werewolf or vampire. The creature shimmered. It was already attempting shape-shifting, but Lythande’s spell had trapped it in human form.
It gave a despairing—a human—cry as Lythande whipped up the dagger which was effective against mundane menaces. To a creature whose essence had been so long purely of magic, Lythande thought swiftly, how could anything be more humiliating than being killed in ordinary human form?
It lay dead before her, and she spoke—not unwillingly—a spell which would keep it from coming back to life. Everywhere in the village now, people were coming out of doors, and one of them bent over the pathetic corpse.
“Ah, Haymil,” he said. “He was a suicide last year and buried in unhallowed ground.”
“And therefore came back to an unnatural life,” said Lythande. “And so you see that even a priest should err on the side of mercy. Had your priest allowed him to rest in sanctified ground, you could have saved many silvers.”
They were all eager to buy her a drink, to shake her hand, but as for Lythande she could not too quickly shake the dust of the town off her shoes. At least, she reflected as the town vanished behind her in the distance, they were newly mended.
To Drive the Cold Winter Away
It was very dark, and needles of sleet pierced the greyish- black sky as Lythande fought her way through the still, freezing cold. The only light was that fitful radiance which came from the snow itself, and, at a distance, there was a faint glimmer as if a single candle sent a stray gleam of light. Hell, and the abode of lost souls—if there was one, Lythande thought—must be very like this: silent, cold and dark.
She struggled through the dark silence, toward the faraway light, her lute on her back in its ornately decorated woolen case, hoping the damp cold would not damage it. It seemed that the very idea of song had died out of the cold silence. Lythande would have struck up a song, but she was half frozen; neither her fingers nor her throat could have made the slightest sound. Even the idea of sound seemed to have died in the dark.
The single candle shone through the encompassing dark like a metaphor for Light against Darkness: symbol of the great struggle of humankind. It seemed to grow even more still as she struggled up the stone, snow-covered steps outside the inn.
She thrust the door open, her steps sounding loud in the silence. Indoors it was nearly as cold as outside, A fitful and inadequate fire barely showed her the faces of the few scattered men and women in the gloom. Lythande would gladly have gone out even faster than she had come in, so gloomy the place looked.
A scant half dozen men and women were seated around the inadequate fire, and a man in an innkeeper’s leather apron turned to look at the minstrel.
“Here, you don’t want to bring that lute in here,” he said glumly. “Our duke’s forbidden music in this town.”
“Forbidden music?” Lythande had never heard of such a thing. “Then how are minstrels to get their living?”
It was a ridiculous question, and Lythande knew it when the innkeeper said morosely, “Duke says it would be better if none of ’em got a living at all; rogues and vagabonds all of ’em, he says.”
“Now I resent that,” Lythande said. “For while I am a vagabond and wanderer, having no home, no man can call me a rogue. Nor any woman neither.”
For, while the laws of the Adepts of the Blue Star forbade her to be known as a woman, she must travel in disguise. Still, she did no harm to anyone.
“And why have you no home?” asked the glum landlord. “In weather like this, a man should stay by his own fire.”
“But alas, I have neither home nor fire,” Lythande said, “nor chick nor child nor wife. And I wander because it is a geas laid on me, that I roam the world till the last day of Chaos shall come, in the great battle of Good and Evil. I am sworn to fight against Evil, and I must say your ban on music strikes me as great evil. For what save music distinguishes men from beast? The birds may sing better but they have no lore of ballads. Any dog may bark louder, but none of their noises sings, or makes sense. And but for music, what is it that distinguishes the work of man from that of any beast? What else is there that men can do, that some beast cannot do better?”
“Why, you argue as good as t’ Duke’s preacher” said the innkeeper gloomily,
“Give me a pot of beer,” Lythande said, not willing to continue the argument, and knowing that whatever was said or not said, she had won her argument and defended her way of life. That was enough.
“No beer in this town,” said the innkeeper. “Duke says wine is a great evil, and beer worse. Ain’t there no men in your town beat their wives and children when they been drinking?”
Once again, Lythande had never heard such a thing. “You might as well say that my lute should be outlawed, because I could use it to beat someone over the head till he is dead. Some men use knives to kill. By that logic, if you call it so, should I tear my meat with my teeth like a dog? Because some men are beasts, should all men suffer, and none use reason? Coffee, then?”
“No coffee, neither,” said the innkeeper, “coffee contains wicked stimulants.”
“Whatever folk drink in your town against bad weather, then,” said Lythande, sick of the argument and only wanting to be warm. The innkeeper set before her a cup of steaming straw-colored fluid.
“Herb tea’s good for you; contains none o’ them wicked stimulants,” the innkeeper remarked. Lythande, touching the colorless stuff to her lips, could well believe it. It tasted almost as flavorless as it looked.
At least it was warm; not very, but even so, Lythande could not drink it. She made no comment on that, lest they should suddenly discover warmth or savor was evil too, because it was so much sought after.
“A bowl of soup then, served in your warmest bedchamber,” Lythande commanded. “And a fire, if that is allowed.”
The servant conducted her to a cheerless bedroom, but at least a small fire was burning, though fitfully. Lythande sat down by the fire, wondering what would happen. The maid went to fetch the soup, and Lythande sat down by the sluggishly burning fire, and thought about the ban on music in this town. She had never heard of anything like it, in all her long travels.
“But is it laid on me that, because I think the ban on music evil, I must be required to fight it?” she wondered. She was afraid that it did mean just that. The very fact that she could formulate the question, by the peculiar laws of magic, probably did mean just that.
But how, then, was she to fight it? She had not done enough by protesting it? No, for it was still going on. She groaned, knowing that she must do something more.
But how? This at least Lythande knew she need not concern herself about. The very fact that the question had been raised in her mind meant it would soon appear in her life. Lythande resolved to sleep while she could. If the problem was to come to her, it would come, but there was nothing she could do to bring it nearer or to delay it.
When the maid brought a small bowl of thin and not too tasty soup, Lythande ate only a few spoonfuls before rolling herself in the clammy blankets, and after a while, she fell asleep.
When she woke, the pale light in the room told her it was still snowing. She thought it was late in the year for that; spring should have come at least ten days ago.
Surely the ban on music could not delay the coming of spring! Or could it? The very fact that she could put the question that way, meant it was very probable that the ban on music—and the ban on joy in men’s hearts, which was what the ban on music was really all about—was something she might well be expected to remedy.
Lythande rose, and looked out of the window so that she could see what there was to be seen. Only a dreary grey landscape greeted her eyes, a hard pelting of snow whipping up into drifts like a great bowl of whipped cream. She smiled at the innocence of the simile and drew on her boots, wrapping herself in the mage-robe which had dried overnight. The tight windows reduced the noise of the storm to a faint distant roaring; the snowdrifts seemed to move noiselessly, with a curious effect. Lythande unslung her lute from her shoulder, and hoping to raise her own spirits before facing the hostility downstairs, began to play a song of many years ago, unheard since she was young. It had been the first song she had learned to play as a young girl, many years before the Blue Star was inscribed between her brows. At that time her name had still been—she slammed the thought shut, unwilling to let the forgotten name cross the barrier of her memory for the first time in—how many years? Could music then comfort her for the loss of a woman’s name and identity? When nothing else in all these years had done so? Perhaps not; but it was, perhaps the only thing that could possibly have done so.
As the last notes of the song died into silence, Lythande prepared once again to take up the burden of her minstrel’s identity and of this town. A random glance out the window showed her that the hard-driving snow had died down and its hiss was replaced by a dull roaring of the wind. Dim stretches of damp dismal-looking browned grass showed through the soggy-looking runnels of melted snow.
So, she thought, music’s power has already shown itself. She hoisted the lute, and went down the inn stairs. In the common room, many of the people were staring out into the grey and silver lines of rain. As the gloomy innkeeper of last night set a cup of the colorless herb tea before her, he actually smiled.
“The bread this morning is fresh-baked,” he said, and as she lifted it to her lips, she caught a whiff of cinnamon. The bread—which she could smell in the kitchen—was fresh and smelled delicious. “Would you like some, minstrel?”
“I would indeed,” Lythande said, heart-felt; for the first time, perhaps, in a century, she resented the prohibition on eating or drinking in the sight of any man under which every Adept of the Blue Star must live.
The glum innkeeper said “I heard you playin’ that there lute upstairs! That ain’t allowed, minstrel. Like I told you, t’ Duke won’t have it in this town.
The bread smelled so good she wished she dared to snatch a bite, but she had not tried to break her geas in many years and did not know what would happen if she did.
She looked out the window instead. The view from the window encouraged her to come back to the innkeeper, and to say “You can see the results of my playing; should I not go on?”
“Looks like there’s been a spring thaw,” he said, “You trying to tell me you did that, minstrel?”
“Not I,” Lythande said, “But the power of song.”
And, since he did nothing, she looked defiantly back into the room which was filling up with travelers, and then lifted the lute to her fingers and began to play again. No one protested, not even the morose innkeeper; but something suspiciously like a smile cracked the frozen dignity of his face.
“I’ll get you some o’ the hot fresh bread,” was all he said, and withdrew from the room.
One man said gloomily “Well, I don’ know what t’ Duke’ll say,” and glared at Lythande. “The innkeeper came back into the room, and snarled “If what Duke’ll say matters so much, Giles, let ’im come himself an’ stop this weather! Or do you want to try it?” He laid the hot fresh bread atop Lythande’s pack, and said “Take it with you, an’ eat it on the road, minstrel.”
Lythande put the roll of bread into her pack and thanked the innkeeper, sincerely; then hoisted her pack and prepared to leave. She stopped to pay her reckoning.
Outside the window they could all see where stray spikes of green poked their way throu
gh the soggy lawn. Encouraged by the innkeeper’s lack of protest Lythande began to sing.
Surely the time of singing has come
The voices of birds and springing of grass
With every living thing rejoicing;`
Loving and nesting
Robins springing and warbling everywhere
Yes, everywhere around us,
Birds are singing, and waters flowing
And the first blossoms of the spring
And summer can be seen.
Beyond the window, the dead grey of the sky had begun to show stretches of blue, strewn with puffy clouds, and on the wide lawns pale and delicate flower buds were replacing the hills of snow. From somewhere beyond the window came the delicate sound of a little pipe. The travelers were all outside by now, in the spring morning.
Lythande was moved to go on singing as the innkeeper set before her a mug of what proved to be a particularly nutty blend of beer and went away without a word. Since she was now alone in the room, Lythande drained the mug, and left the cup of herb tea, which, she thought might make a good eyewash—from its smell, that was about all it was good for.
And Lythande sang again;
Birdsong drenches the land;
The birds, every one.
are building nests;
Even the worms, from their holes
Seeks each one his mate.
From the corner of her eye, Lythande saw a pair of rabbits enjoying themselves in the way rabbits always did. Quietly, still singing, she went out of the inn, and down the steps. Far away, the shepherd’s pipe was still playing, and beyond clear view, she could see where two shadows merged into one.
And when she was out of sight of the inn, she began the last verse of her song:
Yes, all things seek a mate,
And only I languish in loneliness...
Well, she had restored joy and song to the blighted village; wasn’t that supposed to be the next best thing to a love of one’s own? As Lythande turned her back on the village and unobserved bit into her bread, she took up the road where patches of melting snow still lingered. She saw the world through a rainbow of tears, and her song remembered past love songs.
The Complete Lythande Page 24