Swords Against Darkness

by Paula Guran

  “As the nomads say,” said Cyrion, “ ‘three donkeys cannot get their heads into the same bucket.’ I have enough.”

  Outside in the city, now ablaze with windows under a sky ablaze with stars, songs and shouting of celebration rose into the cool hollow of the desert night.

  “A night without blood and without horror,” said Memled.

  Cyrion walked down the palace stairway. Memled remained on the stair, his guards scattered loosely about him. In the marketplace a fire burned, and there was dancing. The black clothes were all gone; the women had put on their finery and earrings sparkled and clinked as they danced together. The men drank, eying the women.

  Near the edge of the group, two children poised like small stones, dressed in their best, and Cyrion saw their faces.

  A child’s face, incorrigible calendar of the seasons of the soul. Men learn pretense, if they must. A child has not had the space to learn.

  Cyrion hesitated. He turned about, and strolled back towards the steps of the palace, and softly up the steps.

  “One last thing, my friend, the prince,” he called to Memled.

  “What is that?”

  Cyrion smiled. “You were too perfect and I did not quite see it, till just now a child showed me.” Cyrion swung the bag from his shoulder exactly into Memled’s belly. Next second the sword flamed to Cyrion’s hand, and Memled’s black-winged head hopped down the stair.

  Around the fire, the dancers had left off dancing. The guards were transfixed in stammering shock, though no hand flew to a blade. Cyrion wiped his own blade, this time on Memled’s already trembling torso.

  “That one, too,” said Cyrion.

  “Yes, sir,” said the nearest of the guard, thickly. “There were the two of them.”

  “And they dined nightly over who should batten on the city, did they not, your prince-demon and his doxy. He could not avoid the prophecy, either, of a hero at the gates. He was obliged to court me, and, in any event, reckoned the lady would deal with me as with the others. But when she did not, he was content I should have killed her, if he could escape me and keep the city for himself to feed him. He rendered himself straightly. He never once uttered for his own demonic side. He acted as a man, as Memled, the prince—fear and joy. He was too good. Yet I should never have been sure but for the children’s agonized blankness down there, in the crowd.”

  “You are undeniably a hero, and heaven will bless you,” said the guard. It was easy to see he was a true human man, and the rest of them were human too. Unpredictable and bizarre was their relief at rescue, as with all true men, who do not get their parts by heart beforehand, when to cry or when to grin.

  Cyrion laughed low at the glittering sky. “Then bless me, heaven.”

  He went down the stair again. Both children were howling now, as they had not dared do formerly, untrammeled, healthy. Cyrion opened the leather bag, and released the treasure on the square, for adults and children alike to play with.

  Empty-handed, as he came, Cyrion went away into the desert, under the stars.

  C. J. Cherryh (1942– ) is another prolific author who debuted with a sword-and-sorcery novel. Gate of Ivrel (1976) won her the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1977. Three more novels were added to what came to be known as the Morgaine Cycle. Despite protagonist Morgaine’s mission to save the entire universe and her travel through time and space, it doesn’t always read like science fiction. The other protagonist, Nhi Vanye i Chya, starts out as the exiled bastard son of an aristocrat, a young, untried warrior living in a culture similar to the Japanese shogun period.

  The story included here is from an entirely different SF/fantasy series. “A Thief in Korianth,” is an earlier (1981) novelette version of the author’s 1985 novel Angel with the Sword. The story, when expanded, turned into SF. Its setting became a planet that is a backwater cut off from the rest of the thirty-third century human universe—which provided a premise for a singular female hero—Gillian—to be living a far-future but male-dominated hierarchal society in which a girl’s puberty makes her an instant target for rape. The novelette, written for a Flashing Swords anthology, stays true to fantasy. Gillian is a resourceful, shrewd liar and thief who knows her way around the streets. Her desire for riches stems primarily from a maternal instinct to protect her younger sister

  A Thief in Korianth

  C. J. Cherryh

  1

  The Yliz river ran through Korianth, a sullen, muddy stream on its way to the nearby sea, with stone banks where it passed through the city . . . gray stone and yellow water, and gaudy ships which made a spider tangle of masts and riggings above the drab jumbled roofs of the dockside. In fact all Korianth was built on pilings and cut with canals more frequent than streets, the whole pattern of the lower town dictated by old islands and channels, so that buildings took whatever turns and bends the canals dictated, huddled against each other, jammed one up under the eaves of the next—faded paint, buildings like ancient crones remembering the brightness of their youths, decayed within from overmuch of wine and living, with dulled, shuttered eyes looking suspiciously on dim streets and scummed canals, where boat vendors and barge folk plied their craft, going to and fro from shabby warehouses. This was the Sink, which was indeed slowly subsiding into the River—but that took centuries, and the Sink used only the day, quick pleasures, momentary feast, customary famine. In spring rains the Yliz rose; tavern keepers mopped and dockmen and warehousers cursed and set merchandise up on blocks; then the town stank considerably. In summer heats the River sank, and the town stank worse.

  There was a glittering world above this rhythm, the part of Korianth that had grown up later, inland, and beyond the zone of flood: palaces and town houses of hewn stone (which still sank, being too heavy for their foundations, and developed cracks, and whenever abandoned, decayed quickly). In this area too were temples . . . temples of gods and goddesses and whole pantheons local and foreign, ancient and modern, for Korianth was a trading city and offended no one permanently. The gods were transients, coming and going in favor like dukes and royal lovers. There was, more permanent than gods, a king in Korianth, Seithan XXIV, but Seithan was, if rumors might be believed, quite mad, having recovered after poisoning. At least he showed a certain bizarre turn of behavior, in which he played obscure and cruel jokes and took to strange religions, mostly such as promised sybaritic afterlives and conjured demons.

  And central to that zone between, where town and dockside met on the canals, lay a rather pleasant zone of mild decay, of modest townsmen and a few dilapidated palaces. In this web of muddy waterways a grand bazaar transferred the wealth of the Sink (whose dark warrens honest citizens avoided) into higher-priced commerce of the Market of Korianth.

  It was a profitable place for merchants, for proselytizing cults, for healers, interpreters of dreams, prostitutes of the better sort (two of the former palaces were brothels, and no few of the temples were), palm readers and sellers of drinks and sweetmeats, silver and fish, of caged birds and slaves, copper pots and amulets and minor sorceries. Even on a chill autumn day such as this, with the stench of hundreds of altars and the spices of the booths and the smokes of midtown, that of the river welled up. Humanity jostled shoulder to shoulder, armored guard against citizen, beggar against priest, and furnished ample opportunity for thieves.

  Gillian glanced across that sea of bobbing heads and swirling colors, eased up against the twelve-year-old girl whose slim, dirty fingers had just deceived the fruit merchant and popped a first and a second handful of figs into the torn seam of her cleverly sewn skirt. Gillian pushed her own body into the way of sight and reached to twist her fingers into her sister’s curls and jerk. Jensy yielded before the hair came out by the roots, let herself be dragged four paces into the woman-wide blackness of an alley, through which a sickly stream of something threaded between their feet.

  “Hsst,” Gillian said. “Will you have us on the run for a fistful of sweets? You have no judgment.”

/>   Jensy’s small face twisted into a grin. “Old Haber-shen’s never seen me.” Gillian gave her a rap on the ear, not hard. The claim was truth: Jensy was deft. The double-sewn skirt picked up better than figs. “Not here,” Gillian said. “Not in this market. There’s high law here. They cut your hand off, stupid snipe.”

  Jensy grinned at her; everything slid off Jensy. Gillian gripped her sister by the wrist and jerked her out into the press, walked a few stalls down. It was never good to linger. They did not look the best of customers, she and Jensy, ragged curls bound up in scarves, coarse sacking skirts, blouses that had seen good days—before they had left some goodwoman’s laundry. Docksiders did come here, frequent enough in the crowds. And their faces were not known outside the Sink; varying patterns of dirt were a tolerable disguise.

  Lean days were at hand; they were not far from winter, when ships would be scant, save only the paltry, patched coasters. In late fall and winter the goods were here in midtown, being hauled out of warehouses and sold at profit. Dockside was slim pickings in winter; dockside was where she preferred to work—given choice. And with Jensy—

  Midtown frightened her. This place was daylight and open, and at the moment she was not looking for trouble; rather she made for the corner of the fish market with its peculiar aromas and the perfumed reek of Agdalia’s gilt temple and brothel.

  “Don’t want to,” Jensy declared, planting her feel.

  Gillian jerked her willy-nilly. “I’m not going to leave you there, mousekin. Not for long.”

  “I hate Sophonisba.”

  Gillian stopped short, jerked Jensy about by the shoulder and looked down into the dirty face. Jensy sobered at once, eyes wide. “Sophonisba never lets the customers near you.”

  Jensy shook her head, and Gillian let out a breath. She had started that way; Jensy would not. She dragged Jensy to the door, where Sophonisba held her usual post at the shrine of the tinsel goddess—legitimacy of a sort, more than Sophonisba had been born to. Gillian shoved Jensy into Sophonisba’s hands . . . overblown and overpainted, all pastels and perfumes and swelling bosom—it was not lack of charms kept Sophonisba on the market street, by the Fish, but the unfortunate voice, a Sink accent and a nasal whine that would keep her here forever. Dead ear, Gillian reckoned of her in some pity, for accents came off and onto Gillian’s tongue with polyglot facility; Sophonisba probably did not know her affliction—a creature of patterns, reliable to follow them.

  “Not in daylight,” Sophonisba complained, painted eyes distressed. “Double cut for daylight. Are you working here? I don’t want any part of that. Take yourselves elsewhere.”

  “You know I wouldn’t bring the king’s men down on Jensy; mind her, old friend, or I’ll break your nose.”

  “Hate you,” Jensy muttered, and winced, for Sophonisba gripped her hair. She meant Sophonisba. Gillian gave her a face and walked away, free. The warrens or the market—neither plate was safe for a twelve-year-old female with light fingers and too much self-confidence; Sophonisba could still keep a string on her—and Sophonisba was right to worry: stakes were higher here, in all regards.

  Gillian prowled the aisles, shopping customers as well as booths, lingering nowhere long, flowing with the traffic. It was the third winter coming, the third since she had had Jensy under her wing. Neither of them had known hunger often while her mother had been there to care for Jensy—but those days were gone, her mother gone, and Jensy—Jensy was falling into the pattern. Gillian saw it coming. She had nightmares, Jensy in the hands of the city watch, or knifed in some stupid brawl, like their mother. Or something happening to herself, and Jensy growing up in Sophonisba’s hands.

  Money. A large amount of gold: that was the way out she dreamed of, money that would buy Jensy into some respectable order, to come out polished and fit for midtown or better. But that kind of money did not often flow accessibly on dockside, in the Sink. It had to be hunted here; and she saw it—all about her—at the risk of King’s-law, penalties greater than the dockside was likely to inflict: the Sink took care of its own problems, but it was apt to wink at pilferage and it was rarely so inventively cruel as King’s-law. Whore she was not, no longer, never again; whore she had been, seeking out Genat, a thief among thieves; and the apprentice had passed the master. Genat had become blind Genat the beggar—dead Genat soon after—and Gillian was free, walking the market where Genat himself seldom dared pilfer.

  If she had gold enough, then Jensy was out of the streets, out of the way of things that waited to happen.

  Gold enough, and she could get more: gold was power, and she had studied power zealously, from street bravos to priests, listening to gossip, listening to rich folk talk, one with the alleys and the booths—she learned, did Gillian, how rich men stole, and she planned someday—she always had—to be rich.

  Only three years of fending for two, and this third year that saw Jensy filling out into more than her own whipcord shape would ever be, that promised what Jensy would be the fourth year, when at thirteen she became a mark for any man on the docks—

  This winter or never, for Jensy.

  Gillian walked until her thin soles burned on the cobbles. She looked at jewelers’ booths—too wary, the goldsmiths, who tended to have armed bullies about them. She had once—madly—entertained the idea of approaching a jeweler, proposing her own slight self as a guard: truth, no one on the streets could deceive her sharp eyes, and there would be no pilferage; but say to them, I am a better thief than they, sirs?—that was a way to end like Genat.

  Mistress to such, instead? There seemed no young and handsome ones—even Genat had been that—and she, moreover, had no taste for more such years. She passed the jewelers, hoping forlornly for some indiscretion.

  She hungered by afternoon and thought wistfully of the figs Jensy had fingered; Jensy had them, which meant Jensy would eat them. Gillian was not so rash as in her green years. She would not risk herself for a bit of bread or cheese. She kept prowling, turning down minor opportunities, bumped against a number of promising citizens, but each was a risk, and each deft fingering of their purses showed nothing of great substance.

  The hours passed. The better classes began to wend homeward with their bodyguards and bullies. She began to see a few familiar faces on the edges of the crowd, rufflers and whores and such anticipating the night, which was theirs. Merchants with more expensive goods began folding up and withdrawing with their armed guards and their day’s profits.

  Nothing—no luck at all, and Sophonisba would not accept a cut of bad luck; Gillian had two coppers in her own purse, purloined days ago, and Sophonisba would expect one. It was the streets and no supper if she was not willing to take a risk.

  Suddenly a strange face cut the crowd, making haste: that caught her eye, and like the reflex of a boxer, her body tended that way before her mind had quite weighed matters, so she should not lose him. This was a stranger; there was a fashion to faces in Korianth, and this one was not Korianthine—Abhizite, she reckoned, from upriver. Gillian warmed indeed; it was like summer, when gullible foreigners came onto the docks carrying their traveling funds with them and giving easy opportunity to the light-fingered trade.

  She bumped him in the press at a corner, anticipating his move to dodge her, and her razor had the purse strings, her fingers at once aware of weight, her heart thudding with the old excitement as she eeled through the crowd and alleyward.

  Heavy purse—it was too soon missed; her numbing blow had had short effect. She heard the bawl of outrage, and suddenly a general shriek of alarm. At the bend of the alley she looked back.

  Armored men. Bodyguards!

  Panic hit her; she clutched the purse and ran the dark alley she had mapped in advance for escape, ran with all her might and slid left, right, right, along a broad back street, down yet another alley. They were after her in the twilight of the maze, cursing and with swords gleaming bare.

  It was no ordinary cutpursing. She had tripped something, indeed. She ran until
her heart was nigh to bursting, took the desperate chance of a stack of firewood to scamper to a ledge and into the upper levels of the midtown maze.

  She watched them then, she lying on her heaving belly and trying not to be heard breathing. They were someone’s hired bravos for certain, scarred of countenance, with that touch of the garish that bespoke gutter origins.

  “Common cut-purse,” one said. That rankled. She had other skills.

  “Someone has to have seen her,” said another. “Money will talk, in the Sink.” They went away. Gillian lay still, panting, opened the purse with trembling fingers. A lead cylinder stamped with a seal; lead, and a finger-long sealed parchment, and a paltry three silver coins.

  Bile welled up in her throat. They had sworn to search for her even into the impenetrable Sink. She had stolen something terrible; she had ruined herself; and even the Sink could not hide her, not against money, and such men.

  Jensy, she thought, sick at heart. If passersby had seen her strolling there earlier and described Jensy—their memories would be very keen, for gold. The marks on the loot were ducal seals, surely; lesser men did not use such things. Her breath shuddered through her throat. Kings and dukes. She had stolen lead and paper, and her death. She could not read, not a word—not even to know what she had in hand.

  —and Jensy!

  She swept the contents back into the purse, thrust it into her blouse and, dropping down again into the alley, ran.

  2

  The tinsel shrine was closed. Gillian’s heart sank, and her vision blurred. Again to the alleys and behind, thence to a lower-story window with a red shutter. She reached up and rapped it a certain pattern with her knuckles.