The Complete Lythande

  “Interesting,” Lythande mused. “I should think that sort of behavior would be likely to give him a dislike for her.”

  “Perhaps not,” Eirthe said. “She certainly didn’t miss a single opportunity to tell him how wonderful he was and how she just didn’t know how she could have managed to cope without him.”

  “What did you do, follow her around all day?”

  “Of course not,” Eirthe smiled innocently. “I was dipping candles in the courtyard almost the entire day. Ask anyone.” She grinned. “I had the salamanders keep watch. We’ve been here long enough now that no one pays much heed to them as long as they don’t get too close—and have you ever noticed how seldom people look up? And no one looks closely at the wall sconces; one of the babies has spent several days in Velvet’s room impersonating a candle flame. He’s still there, in fact; I think he likes her.” She looked thoughtful. “I wonder how Tashgan would react if I gave his bride a salamander for a wedding gift?”

  Lythande chuckled. “I suspect that would depend on where it wanted to sleep at night.”

  Eirthe popped the last piece of fruit into her mouth, swallowed it, and licked her fingers. “I’ll think about it.” She rose to her feet. “I had better go and dress for the ceremony. Have you decided what illusions you’ll use for the Games?”

  “I have a number of possibilities,” Lythande said, “but I expect to do a lot of improvisation once the duel gets started.”

  “I expect it will be very interesting,” Eirthe said. “I’ll see you at the ceremony.”

  ~o0o~

  The ceremony was held at the entrance to the castle, so as many people as wanted to could witness their lord’s wedding. Tashgan was resplendent in a long cloth-of-gold tunic, while Velvet wore a dress of deep sapphire velvet with a matching headdress that completely covered her hair. A pale blue silk veil attached to the crown of the headdress covered her face. The wedding party: the priest, the bride and groom, and their chief witnesses stood on the steps, and the courtyard was crowded with spectators. The Vizier was the witness for Tashgan, as Lythande had expected, but she was surprised to see Lady Beauty standing with Velvet. She looked around the courtyard, but did not see Lady Mirwen anywhere.

  “Do you know where Mirwen is?” she whispered to Eirthe, who was standing next to her.

  “Still in the great hall, I guess,” Eirthe replied. “That’s where she was when I came out, but I thought she’d be out for the ceremony.”

  “It would appear that she has better things to do than to watch her charge get married,” Lythande said dryly.

  “Several of the salamanders are in there,” Eirthe said reassuringly. “I’ll find out what she was doing as soon as the ceremony is over.”

  ~o0o~

  But as soon as the ceremony ended the marriage-feast started, and Lythande’s status meant that she was stuck at the high table with Tashgan and the Vizier. Fortunately it appeared to be the custom to separate, by the full length of the table, the Champions of the Marriage Games, so the Vizier sat to Lady Mirwen’s left, with Velvet on his left, followed by Tashgan, Beauty, and Lythande.

  This left Lythande with Lady Beauty as a dinner companion, but at least she was spared having to make conversation to both sides. She applied herself to her food while Beauty complimented Tashgan on his bride’s beauty—as if he had anything to do with that—and joked about how eager he must be to begin his duties as a husband. Tashgan laughed, agreed with everything she said, and drank his wine. Beauty reminded him to eat “—you’ll need your strength, dear boy, and ’tis well known that too much wine dulls the performance...”

  As Tashgan obediently began to eat, Beauty turned her attention to Lythande. “I hear that you, dear boy, are to be Tashgan’s Champion in a contest of magic after dinner.”

  Was there a twinge of jealousy in her voice? Lythande wasn’t sure. At least she seemed willing to keep Lythande’s secret. “That is true,” Lythande admitted, then succumbed to curiosity. “Tell me, Lady Beauty; do you call everyone ‘dear boy’?”

  “Frequently,” Beauty said with a smile. “It’s so much easier than remembering names; people come and go so quickly, don’t you think? It also reduces the chance of my miscalling someone—by the wrong name, I mean,” she said, looking deliberately bland.

  “Quite.” Lythande kept her voice and face equally bland.

  “I do believe that your little friend is looking for you,” Beauty added, indicating a salamander hovering in the doorway.

  “So it would seem,” Lythande murmured. “If you would excuse me for a moment, my lady?”

  Beauty smiled and bent closer, obviously willing to enter into the conspiracy. “If anyone asks, you’ve gone to the privy.”

  Lythande nodded assent and slipped from the room as quietly as possible.

  In fact the salamander did lead her in the direction of the privies, where she met Eirthe, apparently returning from there to the hall.

  “She was casting some sort of spell on the contest area,” Eirthe said quickly, smiling as if they were exchanging greetings. “Something fairly elaborate, but the salamanders couldn’t give me any details—aside from the fact that she used her own candles and not any of mine! That they noticed.”

  “Well, I’m sure we’ll find out the details soon,” Lythande said with resignation. I was afraid this day was going to be interesting.

  “No doubt,” Eirthe agreed, continuing back to the hall. Lythande went to the privies before going back herself; the easiest way to carry off deception was to make as much of it as possible the truth.

  ~o0o~

  The feast continued for several hours. Lythande ate sparingly and drank little, knowing that she would need to be alert for the work to come. Finally Tashgan stood up to announce the contest.

  “It is the custom of my bride’s people,” he began, “to have a contest of magical illusions to celebrate a wedding. The two Champions will vie with each other to create the most fantastic and beautiful illusion, and you, my friends, will be the judges.” Waiting for the applause to die down, he continued, “The Champions will be Lady Mirwen for Valantia, and Lythande for Tschardain. Let the Games begin!”

  As Lythande stood, Lady Mirwen strode quickly to the area cleared for the contest and faced Tashgan. “Lord Tashgan, as I told you when you first proposed this sacrilege, these Games are for women. No man may be a Champion in the Marriage Games. I have, therefore, bespelled this area so that only a woman can work magic in it.” Lythande froze in place, but kept her face impassive as Mirwen gloated. “Unless your ‘Champion’ can prove himself a woman, you will have to concede the Games—or find a suitable Champion.”

  “Lythande?” Tashgan turned to look at his Champion. “Can you remove her spell?”

  Lythande hoped her laugh did not sound as forced as it felt. “Easily, Lord Tashgan. But I’m sorry to have to inform you that the quickest way to do so is to undo all her spells, which will, of course, make her unable to compete in the Games.” And will, of course, remove the illusion from Velvet as well. I’m not certain that Lady Mirwen wants that to happen just yet.

  It seemed that Lythande was correct on that point, for Lady Mirwen looked distinctly nervous. She had just opened her mouth, presumably to offer to cancel the spell herself, when Beauty intervened.

  “Lord Tashgan,” she said, rising to her feet. “I ask a boon. Let me be your Champion!”

  Tashgan looked at Lythande, who could appreciate his dilemma. He certainly must know enough about Beauty that he would never wish to offend her, but he wasn’t certain just how powerful—and likely to take offense—Lythande might be. But Lythande had excellent reasons for wishing to keep Beauty happy as well.

  “If Lady Beauty wishes it,” Lythande said promptly, “I would be well content to relinquish my place to her. I have the greatest respect for her magical abilities.”

  “And Lady Mirwen would have no cause to complain of ‘sacrilege,’” Beauty pointed out.

  “Very well,�
� Tashgan said. “Lady Beauty shall be my Champion. Lythande shall act as referee.” Lythande gallantly pulled Beauty’s chair back and escorted her from the dais before returning to her own place at the head table.

  Lady Mirwen faced Beauty with the self-satisfied look of a spoiled child who had gotten her own way once again. “This is much better, don’t you think? Men shouldn’t try to play at magic; it finds its highest and truest expression in the human female. No one can deny that.”

  “I wouldn’t stake my life on that,” Beauty said, smiling enigmatically.

  Mirwen obviously didn’t understand that statement, so she ignored it. She waved her hands in an elaborate showy pattern, and chanted something that was clearly intended to be a spell. Lythande, from her long life and extensive musical background, recognized it as a very old students’ drinking song, old enough that the language was no longer spoken in that form. From the twitching of Beauty’s lips, Lythande was sure that she was not alone in identifying the “spell.” But Beauty stood quietly, allowing her opponent to create the first illusion.

  It was quite pretty; Lythande was willing to admit that. A line of trees made a backdrop for the scene and concealed Mirwen, which Lythande thought improved the esthetic appeal considerably. A meadow with bright green grass dotted with brilliantly colored flowers hid the floor, and a crystal blue pond filled the foreground. Beside the pond sat two figures: Velvet—a copy of the illusion, which was still on the real princess—and a younger-looking idealized form of Tashgan.

  And that’s probably exactly what he thinks he does look like, Lythande thought. Clever move. Not brilliant, but clever. Not bad for an opening illusion, and quite suitable for a wedding.

  The murmurs of appreciation in the hall died away as everyone waited to see what Beauty would do to answer this. When the hall was completely silent, Beauty began.

  A glittering silvery mist rose up from the pond, hiding the figures and the landscape. Lights flickered within the mist for several minutes, and then a breeze came out of nowhere and blew the mist away. Gasps of astonishment and pleasure swept through the hall as the scene was revealed. Beauty had made the illusion larger, so that everyone could see it, and she had added a castle of glistening white marble, carved into fantastic shapes and ornamentation. As the spectators oohed and aahed, the illusory “sky” changed from blue into a beautiful multicolored sunset, followed by darkness, broken by lights shining from the castle and reflecting off the water of the pond. The entire banquet hall darkened as well, enabling the audience to see the illusion better and without distraction. Then dawn came, with more colors, soft pastels deepening as “day” dawned. As the light brightened around the figures of Tashgan and Velvet, Lythande gave an appreciative chuckle. The figure of Velvet was pregnant.

  “Fast work,” a man’s voice called from somewhere in the hall. That got a round of laughter from nearly everyone, including Tashgan.

  Lythande thought that she heard Lady Mirwen hissing through her teeth, but she couldn’t be sure because the castle blocked her view of the woman.

  Beauty stepped back and allowed Mirwen to take her next turn. A sudden darkness hid the scene, and when it lifted, just as suddenly—nowhere near as artistically as Beauty’s idealized sunset and sunrise—Velvet and Tashgan had two children: a sturdy boy toddling around at the edge of the pond and a baby in Velvet’s arms. Both children had the same perfect beauty as the illusion Velvet wore.

  Not the best move, Lythande thought, listening to mutters from the hall. Children who favor their mother so completely could be fathered by anyone. It would be more politic to have at least one of them resemble Tashgan.

  Beauty seemed to share Lythande’s opinion. She gave an audible sniff of disdain as she moved forward to take her next turn. The boy grew from a toddler into a young boy and, as he grew, his form changed so that he looked very much like Tashgan. The baby wriggled out of its mother’s lap, crawled to the edge of the pond and surveyed its reflection in the water, tilting its little head to one side as if in thought. Then it reached forward with a chubby little hand and splashed water on its face. The coloring and features changed as if a layer of paint had been washed away. The little girl who sat up and began to gather flowers for a chain had brown hair, grey eyes, and freckles. She was cute, and she looked very much the way Velvet must have looked at that age.

  Lythande looked around. At the high table Velvet was laughing, and Tashgan was smiling. Mirwen became visible through the towers of the castle as she moved from behind it to stand just behind the trees on her side of the illusion. She looked furious. Obviously she had not expected anyone even to see through the illusion she had placed on Velvet, much less to let her know that they had done so. “How dare you!” she snarled softly.

  But Beauty wasn’t done yet. From the edge of the patch of illusion, animals began to appear. At first they were fairly ordinary: a sapphire blue bird flew to perch on the illusory Velvet’s shoulder, picking up the color of her eyes; an elegant sleek golden hound came to sit at Tashgan’s side. The complexity of the illusion increased: a group of deer in all the colors of the rainbow came to drink from the pool, blue and green ducks and silver swans floated across its surface, and a pure white unicorn with a silver horn spiraling outward from the center of its forehead walked up to the little girl, dipping its head so that she could put her flower chain around its neck.

  Mirwen raised her arms dramatically and snapped out a few words in a language Lythande didn’t recognize. It still sounded like a curse. Oh oh, Lythande thought, this is getting ugly.

  A pack of black wolves came out of the pond and rushed to surround the unicorn and the girl. The girl backed up against the unicorn’s side, and the unicorn defended itself as best it could with kicks at any wolf who got too close, but they were badly outnumbered. A couple of wolves darted in to attack, and the unicorn was bleeding by the time it beat the back.

  This is too much. Lythande rose to her feet and shouted “Hold!”

  All action in the scene froze as Mirwen turned to Lythande and snarled, “What is your problem?”

  “The game being played here, Lady Mirwen, is not ‘My illusion can kill your illusion,’” Lythande said sternly. “This is not a magical duel. You appear to be forgetting that.”

  “It is not your place to interfere,” Lady Mirwen snapped. “I was weaving illusions before you were born!”

  “I doubt that very much,” Lythande said calmly. “Lord Tashgan named me referee for these games. You are supposed to be making something beautiful, not causing bloodshed—even if it is illusory.” She turned to Beauty. “Lady Beauty, I believe it is your turn now.”

  “Of course, dear boy,” Beauty said, smiling. She stepped forward and began to work. First she dissolved a section of trees, revealing Lady Mirwen to the audience, and cast the illusion of a tree over the rival sorceress. It wasn’t a beautiful tree; it was gnarled and twisted and actually quite ugly—and very clearly what Mirwen would look like if she were a tree. Laughter echoed around the hall as people caught the joke. The Mirwen tree twisted, trying to glare at the people who were laughing, but Beauty waved a slender hand, and water fell from above, covering the tree completely. Beauty looked at it and inhaled sharply, and the water froze, coating the tree with ice, which caught the light from Eirthe’s candles and glittered in a flickering pattern.

  That’s as close to beautiful as Mirwen is ever likely to get, Lythande thought.

  Beauty turned her attention to the wolves surrounding the unicorn and smiled again. She waved her hand, and the wolves were transformed into cuddly black puppies. They frolicked around, emitting enthusiastic little yelps, and butting at the girl’s ankles before darting off to play with the boy.

  The unicorn, with the girl still at its side, walked forward to dip its horn in the pool. The pool spread toward Lady Beauty until it touched the hem of her skirt, and she began to transform as well. Her arms dropped to touch her sides briefly before sweeping upward and back, and as they moved, he
r green and gold sleeves changed to wings with scales so bright they seemed made of gold and emeralds. Her body grew, her face elongated, and before anyone could so much as blink, a dragon stood in her place, towering over the pool and dominating the scene.

  The soft gasps and hushed attention of the spectators were more of an accolade than any applause. The audience waited in fascination to see what would happen next. Even Lythande sat transfixed, and Tashgan was scarcely breathing.

  The dragon puffed out its cheeks and blew out a soft pale flame which melted the ice covering the tree. Lady Mirwen snapped out of the illusion and stalked through the line of trees to confront her adversary.

  “The Champions are not supposed to be part of the illusions!” she snapped. “And I don’t know what you think you’ve turned yourself into, but I assure you that it’s ugly! Didn’t anyone tell you that these illusions are supposed to be beautiful?”

  “I am a dragon,” Beauty replied calmly, “and I am beautiful. If beauty is the main criterion of this contest, however, I can readily see why you disqualify yourself—although as an ice-covered tree you had a certain charm.”

  “While you are hideous, scaly, and altogether loathsome!” Mirwen snarled. “You call yourself a sorceress? A simple hedge-witch has better taste!”

  “I really couldn’t say,” Beauty mused aloud. “It’s been so long since I’ve eaten a hedge-witch that I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the precise taste of one. Anyway, once they are properly broiled, most humans taste pretty much alike.”

  “You’re not funny!” Mirwen was almost screaming by now. “I won’t let you make a fool out of me!”

  “My dear girl,” Beauty replied, obviously quite amused, “I don’t have to. You do it so well yourself.”

  Even Lythande chuckled at that, though she doubted that she could be heard above the roar of laughter coming from the rest of the hall. Tashgan was almost doubled over, and now Lythande could see Velvet beyond him. The girl was well-trained, one had to admit that; she was still sitting upright with a reasonably composed face. Having a side view, Lythande could see clearly where Velvet was biting the inside of her cheek so she wouldn’t laugh aloud at her lady-in-waiting. Too bad that Tashgan didn’t have the same restraint.