Thieves’ World

by Edited By Robert Asprin

  Bercy looked around, eyes wide, at the pillared lobby, the brilliance of a hundred lanterns, the exquisitely dressed women lounging on cushions till they were summoned. They were finely dressed and bejewelled—Myrtis knew her trade, and how to present her wares—and Lythande guessed that the ragged Bercy’s glance was one of envy; she had probably sold herself in the bazaars for a few coppers or for a loaf of bread, since she was old enough. Yet somehow, like flowers covering a dungheap, she had kept an exquisite fresh beauty, all gold and white, flowerlike. Even ragged and half-starved, she touched Lythande’s heart.

  “Bercy, have you eaten today?”

  “No, master.”

  Lythande summoned the huge eunuch Jiro, whose business it was to conduct the favoured customers to the chambers of their chosen women, and throw out the drunks and abusive customers into the street. He came—huge-bellied, naked except for a skimpy loincloth and a dozen rings in his ear—he had once had a lover who was an earring-seller and had used him to display her wares.

  “How may we serve the magician Lythande?”

  The women on the couches and cushions were twittering at one another in surprise and dismay, and Lythande could almost hear their thoughts; None of us has been able to attract or seduce the great magician, and this ragged street wench has caught his eyes? And, being women, Lythande knew they could see the unclouded beauty that shone through the girl’s rags.

  “Is Madame Myrtis available, Jiro?”

  “She’s sleeping, O great wizard, but for you she’s given orders she’s to be waked at any hour. Is this—” no one alive can be quite so supercilious as the chief eunuch of a fashionable brothel—”yours, Lythande, or a gift for my madame?”

  “Both, perhaps. Give her something to eat and find her a place to spend the night.”

  “And a bath, magician? She has fleas enough to louse a floorful of cushions!”

  “A bath, certainly, and a bath-woman with scents and oil,” Lythande said, “and something in the nature of a whole garment.”

  “Leave it to me,” said Jiro expansively, and Bercy looked at Lythande in dread, but went when the magician gestured to her to go. As Jiro took her away, Lythande saw Myrtis standing in the doorway; a heavy woman, no longer young, but with the frozen beauty of a spell. Through the perfect spelled features, her eyes were warm and welcoming as she smiled at Lythande.

  “My dear, I had not expected to see you here. Is that yours?” She moved her head towards the door through which Jiro had conducted the frightened Bercy. “She’ll probably run away, you know, once you take your eyes off her.”

  “I wish I thought so, Myrtis. But no such luck, I fear.”

  “You had better tell me the whole story,” Myrtis said, and listened to Lythande’s brief, succinct account of the affair.

  “And if you laugh, Myrtis, I take back my spell and leave your grey hairs and wrinkles open to the mockery of everyone in Sanctuary!” …

  But Myrtis had known Lythande too long to take that threat very seriously. “So the maiden you rescued is all maddened with desire for the love of Lythande!” She chuckled. “It is like an old ballad, indeed!”

  “But what am I to do, Myrtis? By the paps of Shipri the All-Mother, this is a dilemma!”

  “Take her into your confidence and tell her why your love cannot be hers,” Myrtis said.

  Lythande frowned. “You hold my Secret, since I had no choice; you knew me before I was made magician, or bore the blue star—”

  “And before I was a harlot,” Myrtis agreed.

  “But if I make this girl feel like a fool for loving me, she will hate me as much as she loves; and I cannot confide in anyone I cannot trust with my life and my power. All I have is yours, Myrtis, because of that past we shared. And that includes my power, if you ever should need it. But I cannot entrust it to this girl.”

  “Still she owes you something, for delivering her out of the hands of Rabben.”

  Lythande said, “I will think about it; and now make haste to bring me food, for I am hungry and athirst.” Taken to a private room, Lythande ate and drank, served by Myrtis’s own hands. And Myrtis said, “I could never have sworn your vow—to eat and drink in the sight of no man!”

  “If you sought the power of a magician, you would keep it well enough,” said Lythande. “I am seldom tempted now to break it; I fear only lest I break it unawares; I cannot drink in a tavern lest among the women there might be some one of those strange men who find diversion in putting on the garments of a female; even here I will not eat or drink among your women, for that reason. All power depends on the vows and the secret.”

  “Then I cannot aid you,” Myrtis said, “but you are not bound to speak truth to her; tell her you have vowed to live without women.”

  “I may do that,” Lythande said, and finished the food, scowling.

  Later Bercy was brought in, wide-eyed, enthralled by her fine gown and her freshly washed hair, softly curling about her pink-and-white face and the sweet scent of bath oils and perfumes that hung about her.

  “The girls here wear such pretty clothes, and one of them told me they could eat twice a day if they wished! Am I pretty enough, do you think, that Madame Myrtis would have me here?”

  “If that is what you wish. You are more than beautiful.”

  Bercy said boldly, “I would rather belong to you, magician,” and flung herself again on Lythande, her hands clutching and clinging, dragging the lean face down to hers. Lythande, who rarely touched anything living, held her gently, trying not to reveal consternation.

  “Bercy, child, this is only a fancy. It will pass.”

  “No,” she wept. “I love you, I want only you!”

  And then, unmistakably, along the magician’s nerves, Lythande felt that little ripple, that warning thrill of tension which said: spell-casting is in use. Not against Lythande. That could have been countered. But somewhere within the room.

  Here, in the Aphrodisia House? Myrtis, Lythande knew, could be trusted with life, reputation, fortune, the magical power of the Blue Star itself; she had been tested before this. Had she altered enough to turn betrayer, it would have been apparent in her aura when Lythande came near.

  That left only the girl, who was clinging and whimpering, “I will die if you do not love me! I will die! Tell me it is not true, Lythande, that you are unable to love! Tell me it is an evil lie that magicians are emasculated, incapable of loving woman …”

  “That is certainly an evil lie,” Lythande agreed gravely. “I give you my solemn assurance that I have never been emasculated.” But Lythande’s nerves tingled as the words were spoken. A magician might lie, and most of them did. Lythande would lie as readily as any other, in a good cause. But the law of the Blue Star was this: when questioned directly on a matter bearing directly on the Secret, the adept might not tell a direct lie. And Bercy, unknowing, was only one question away from the fatal one hiding the Secret.

  With a mighty effort, Lythande’s magic wrenched at the very fabric of Time itself; the girl stood motionless, aware of no lapse, as Lythande stepped away far enough to read her aura. And yes, there within the traces of that vibrating field was the shadow of the blue star. Rabben’s: overpowering her will.

  Rabben. Rabben the Half-handed, who had set his will on the girl, who had staged and contrived the whole thing, including the encounter where the girl had needed rescue; put the girl under a spell to attract and bespell Lythande.

  The law of the Blue Star forbade one adept of the Star to kill another; for all would be needed to fight side by side, on the last day, against Chaos. Yet if one adept could prise forth the secret of another’s power … then the powerless one was not needed against Chaos and could be killed.

  What could be done now? Kill the girl? Rabben would take that, too, as an answer; Bercy had been so bespelled as to be irresistible to any man; if Lythande sent her away untouched, Rabben would know that Lythande’s secret lay in that area and would never rest in his attempts to uncover it. Fo
r if Lythande was untouched by this sex-spell to make Bercy irresistible, then Lythande was a eunuch, or a homosexual, or … sweating, Lythande dared not even think beyond that. The Secret was safe only if never questioned. It would not be read in the aura; but one simple question, and all was ended.

  I should kill her, Lythande thought. For now I am fighting, not for my magic alone, but for my secret and for my life. For surely, with my power gone, Rabben would lose no time in making an end of me, in revenge for the loss of half a hand.

  The girl was still motionless, entranced. How easily she could be killed! Then Lythande recalled an old fairy-tale, which might be used to save the Secret of the Star.

  The light flickered as Time returned to the chamber. Bercy was still clinging and weeping, unaware of the lapse; Lythande had resolved what to do and the girl felt Lythande’s arms enfolding her, and the magician’s kiss on her welcoming mouth.

  “You must love me or I shall die!” Bercy wept.

  Lythande said, “You shall be mine.” The soft neutral voice was very gentle. “But even a magician is vulnerable in love, and I must protect myself. A place shall be made ready for us without light or sound save for what I provide with my magic; and you must swear that you will not seek to see or to touch me except by that magical light. Will you swear it by the All-Mother, Bercy? For if you swear this, I shall love you as no woman has ever been loved before.”

  Trembling, she whispered, “I swear.” And Lythande’s heart went out in pity, for Rabben had used her ruthlessly; so that she burned alive with her unslaked and bewitched love for the magician, that she was all caught up in her passion for Lythande. Painfully, Lythande thought; if she had only loved me without the spell; then I could have loved …

  Would that I could trust her with my secret. But she is only Rabben’s tool; her love for me is his doing, and none of her own will… and not real… And so everything which would pass between them now must be only a drama staged for Rabben.

  “I shall make all ready for you with my magic.”

  Lythande went and confided to Myrtis what was needed; the woman began to laugh, but a single glance at Lythande’s bleak face stopped her cold. She had known Lythande since long before the blue star was set between those eyes; and she kept the Secret for love of Lythande. It wrung her heart to see one she loved in the grip of such suffering. So she said, “All will be prepared. Shall I give her a drug in her wine to weaken her will, that you may the more readily throw a glamour upon her?”

  Lythande’s voice held a terrible bitterness. “Rabben has done that already for us, when he put a spell upon her to love me.”

  “You would have it otherwise?” Myrtis asked, hesitating.

  “All the gods of Sanctuary—they laugh at me! All-Mother, help me! But I would have it otherwise; I could love her, if she were not Rabben’s tool.”

  When all was prepared, Lythande entered the darkened room. There was no light but the light of the Blue Star. The girl lay on a bed, stretching up her arms to the magician with exalted abandon.

  “Come to me, come to me, my love!”

  “Soon,” said Lythande, sitting beside her, stroking her hair with a tenderness even Myrtis would never have guessed. “I will sing to you a love-song of my people, far away.”

  She writhed in erotic ecstasy. “All you do is good to me, my love, my magician!”

  Lythande felt the blankness of utter despair. She was beautiful, and she was in love. She lay in a bed spread for the two of them, and they were separated by the breadth of the world. The magician could not endure it.

  Lythande sang, in that rich and beautiful voice; a voice lovelier than any spell;

  “Half the night is spent; and the crown of moonlight

  Fades, and now the crown of the stars is paling;

  Yields the sky reluctant to coming morning;

  Still I lie lonely.”

  Lythande could see tears on Bercy’s cheeks.

  “I will love you as no woman has ever been loved.”

  Between the girl on the bed, and the motionless form of the magician, as the magician’s robe fell heavily to the floor, a wraith-form grew, the very wraith and fetch, at first, of Lythande, tall and lean, with blazing eyes and a star between its brows and a body white and unscarred; the form of the magician, but this one triumphant in virility, advancing on the motionless woman, waiting. Her mind fluttered away in arousal, was caught, captured, bespelled. Lythande let her see the image for a moment; she could not see the true Lythande behind; then, as her eyes closed in ecstatic awareness of the touch, Lythande smoothed light fingers over her closed eyes.

  “See—what I bid you to see!

  “Hear—what I bid you hear!

  “Feel—only what I bid you feel, Bercy!”

  And now she was wholly under the spell of the wraith. Unmoving, stony-eyed, Lythande watched as her lips closed on emptiness and she kissed invisible lips; and moment by moment Lythande knew what touched her, what caressed her. Rapt and ravished by illusion that brought her again and again to the heights of ecstasy, till she cried out in abandonment. Only to Lythande that cry was bitter; for she cried out not to Lythande but to the man-wraith who possessed her.

  At last she lay all but unconscious, satiated; and Lythande watched in agony. When she opened her eyes again, Lythande was looking down at her, sorrowfully.

  Bercy stretched up languid arms. “Truly, my beloved, you have loved me as no woman has ever been loved before.”

  For the first and last time, Lythande bent over her and pressed her lips in a long, infinitely tender kiss. “Sleep, my darling.”

  And as she sank into ecstatic, exhausted sleep, Lythande wept.

  Long before she woke, Lythande stood, girt for travel, in the little room belonging to Myrtis.

  “The spell will hold. She will make all haste to carry her tale to Rabben—the tale of Lythande, the incomparable lover! Of Lythande, of untiring virility, who can love a maiden into exhaustion!” The rich voice of Lythande was harsh with bitterness.

  “And long before you return to Sanctuary, once freed of the spell, she will have forgotten you in many other lovers,” Myrtis agreed. “It is better and safer that it should be so.”

  “True.” But Lythande’s voice broke. “Take care of her, Myrtis. Be kind to her.”

  “I swear it, Lythande.”

  “If only she could have loved me”—the magician broke and sobbed again for a moment; Myrtis looked away, wrung with pain, knowing not what comfort to offer.

  “If only she could have loved me as I am, freed of Rabben’s spell! Loved me without pretence! But I feared I could not master the spell Rabben had put on her … nor trust her not to betray me knowing …”

  Myrtis put her plump arms around Lythande, tenderly.

  “Do you regret?”

  The question was ambiguous. It might have meant: Do you regret that you did not kill the girl? Or even: Do you regret your oath and the secret you must bear to the last day? Lythande chose to answer the last.

  “Regret? How can I regret? One day I shall fight against Chaos with all of my order; even at the side of Rabben, if he lives un-murdered as long as that. And that alone must justify my existence and my secret. But now I must leave Sanctuary, and who knows when the chances of the world will bring me this way again? Kiss me farewell, my sister.”

  Myrtis stood on tiptoe. Her lips met the lips of the magician.

  “Until we meet again, Lythande. May She attend and guard you for ever. Farewell, my beloved, my sister.”

  Then the magician Lythande girded on her sword, and went silently and by unseen ways out of the city of Sanctuary, just as the dawn was breaking. And on her forehead the glow of the Blue Star was dimmed by the rising sun. Never once did she look back.

  The Making

  Of Thieves’ World

  By Robert Lynn Asprin

  IT WAS A dark and stormy night…

  Actually, that Thursday night before Boskone ‘78 was a very pleasant night. L
ynn Abbey, Gordy Dickson, and I were enjoying a quiet dinner in the Boston Sheraton’s Mermaid Restaurant prior to the chaos which inevitably surrounds a major science fiction convention.

  As so often happens when several authors gather socially, the conversation turned to the subject of writing in general and specifically to problems encountered and pet peeves. Not to be outdone by my dinner companions, I voiced one of my long-standing gripes: that whenever one set out to write heroic fantasy, it was first necessary to reinvent the universe from scratch regardless of what had gone before. Despite the carefully crafted Hyborean world of Howard or even the delightfully complex town of Lankhmar which Leiber created, every author was expected to beat his head against the writing table and devise a world of his own. Imagine, I proposed, if our favourite sword-and-sorcery characters shared the same settings and time-frames. Imagine the story potentials. Imagine the tie-ins. What if…

  What if Fafhrd and Mouser had just finished a successful heist. With an angry crowd on their heels, they pull one of their notorious doubleback escapes and elude the pursuing throng. Now suppose this angry, torch-waving pack runs headlong into Conan, hot and tired from the trail, his dead horse a day’s walk behind him. All he wants is a jug of wine and a wench. Instead, he’s confronted with a lynch mob. What if his saddlebags are full of loot from one of his own ventures, yet undiscovered?

  Or what if Kane and Elric took jobs marshalling opposite armies in the same war?

  Why, I proclaimed, the possibilities are endless. Pouring a little more wine, I admitted that one of my pet projects under consideration was to do a collection of fantasy stories featuring not one, but an array of central characters. They would all share the same terrain and be peripherally aware of each other’s existence as their paths crossed. The only problem: my writing schedule was filling up so fast I wasn’t sure when or if I’d ever get a chance to write it.

  More wine flowed.

  Gordy sympathized eloquently, pointing out that this was a problem all writers encountered as they grew more and more successful. Time! Time to fulfil your commitments and still be able to write the fun things you really want to write. As an example, he pointed out that there were countless story potentials in his Dorsai universe, but that he was barely able to find the time to complete the Childe Cycle novels, much less pursue all the spin-offs.