Like Lythande, the little stranger wore the cloak of a magician, the fashion of mage-robe worn in the cities at the edge of the Salt Desert. He seemed a little daunted as he looked up at the tall Lythande, and at the glowing blue star. Lythande, cross-belted with twin daggers, looked like a warrior, not a mage.
The fat man wheezed and fidgeted, and finally stammered “H-h-high and noble sor-sor-sorcerer, th-this is embaras—ass-assing—”
Lythande gave him no help, but looked down, with courteous attention, at the bald spot on the fussy little fellow’s head. The stranger stammered on, “I must co-co-confess to you that one of my ri-ri-rivals has st-st-stolen my m-m-magic wa-wa-wa—” He exploded into a perfect storm of stammering, then abandoned “wand” and blurted out, “My p-p-powers are not suf-suf-su—not strong enough to get it ba-ba-back. What would you require as a f-f-fee, O great and noble ma-ma-ma—” he swallowed and managed to get out “sorcerer?”
Beneath the blue star Lythande’s arched and colorless brows went up in amusement.
“Indeed? How did that come to pass? Had you not spelled the wand with such sorcery that none but you could touch it?”
The little man stared, fidgeting, at the belt-buckle of his mage-robe. “I t-t-t-told you this was embarrass-as-as— hard to say, O great and noble ma-ma-magician. I had imbi-bi-bi—”
“In short,” Lythande said, cutting him off, “you were drunk. And somehow your spell must have failed. Well, do you know who has taken it, and why?”
“Roy—Roygan the Proud,” said the little man, adding, “He wanted to be revenged upon m-m-me because he found me in be-be-be—”
“In bed with his wife?” Lythande asked, with perfect gravity, though one better acquainted with the Pilgrim Adept might have detected a faint glimmer of amusement at the corners of the narrow ascetic mouth. The fat little magician nodded miserably and stared at his shoes.
Lythande said at last, in that mellow, neutral voice which had won the mercenary-magician the name of minstrel even before the reputation for successful sorcery had grown, “This bears out the proverb I have always held true, that those who follow the profession of sorcery should have neither wife nor lover. Tell me, O mighty mage and most gallant of bedroom athletes, what do they call you?”
The little man drew himself up to his full height—he reached almost to Lythande’s shoulder—and declared, “I am known far and wide in Gandrin as Rastafyre the Incom-comp-comp—”
“Incompetent?” suggested Lythande gravely.
He set his mouth with a hurt look and said with sonorous dignity, “Rastafyre the Incomparable.”
“It would be amusing to know how you came by that name,” Lythande said, and the eyes under the mage-hood twinkled, “but the telling of funny stories, although a diverting pastime while we await the final battle between Law and Chaos, puts no beans on the table. So you have lost your magic wand to the rival sorcery of Roygan the Proud, and you wish my services to get it back from him—have I understood you correctly?”
Rastafyre nodded, and Lythande asked, “What fee had you thought to offer me in return for the assistance of my sorcery, O Rastafyre the incom—” Lythande hesitated a moment and finished smoothly “incomparable.”
“This jewel,” Rastafyre said, drawing forth a great sparkling ruby which flashed blood tones in the narrow darkness of the hallway.
Lythande gestured him to put it away. “If you wave such things about here, you may attract predators before whom Roygan the Proud is but a kitten-cub. I wear no jewels but this,” Lythande gestured briefly at the blue star that shone with pallid light from the midst of the high forehead, “nor have I lover nor wife nor sweetheart upon whom I might bestow it; I preach only what I myself practice. Keep your jewels for those who prize them.” Lythande made a snatching gesture in the air and between the long, narrow fingers, three rubies appeared, each one superior in color and luster to the one in Rastafyre’s hand. “As you see, I need them not.”
“I but offered the customary fee lest you think me niggardly,” said Rastafyre, blinking with surprise and faint covetousness at the rubies in Lythande’s hand, which blinked for a moment and disappeared. “As it may happen, I have that which may tempt you further.”
The fussy little magician turned and snapped his fingers in the air. He intoned “Ca-Ca-Carrier!”
Out of thin air a great dark shape made itself seen, a dull lumpy outline; it fell and flopped ungracefully at his feet, resolving itself, with a bump, into a brown velveteen bag, embroidered with magical symbols in crimson and gold.
“Gently! Gently, Ca-Ca-Carrier,” Rastafyre scolded, “or you will break my treasures within, and Lythande will have the right to call me Incom-comp-competent.”
“Carrier is more competent than you, O Rastafyre; why scold your faithful creature?”
“Not Carrier, but Ca-Ca-Carrier,” Rastafyre said, “for I knew myself likely to st-st-stam—that I did not talk very well, and I la-la-labeled it by the cogno-cogno—by the name which I knew I would fi-find myself calling it.”
This time Lythande chuckled aloud. “Well done, O mighty and incomparable magician!”
But the laughter died as Rastafyre drew forth from the dark recesses of Ca-Ca-Carrier a thing of rare beauty.
It was a lute, formed of dark precious woods, set about with turquoise and mother-of-pearl, the strings shining with silver; and upon the body of the lute, in precious gemstones, was set a pallid blue star, like to the one which glowed between Lythande’s brows.
“By the bloodshot eyes of Keth-Ketha!”
Lythande was suddenly looming over the little magician, and the blue star began to sparkle and flame with fury; but the voice was calm and neutral as ever.
“Where got you that, Rastafyre? That lute I know; I myself fashioned it for one I once loved, and now she plays a spirit lute in the Courts of Light. And the possessions of a Pilgrim Adept do not pass into the hands of others as readily as the wand of Rastafyre the Incompetent!”
Rastafyre cast down his tubby face, and muttered, unable to face the blue glare of the angry Lythande, that it was a secret of the trade.
“Which means, I suppose, that you stole it, fair and square, from some other thief,” Lythande remarked, and the glare of anger vanished as quickly as it had come. “Well, so be it; you offer me this lute in return for the recovery of your wand?” The tall mage reached for the lute, but Rastafyre saw the hunger in the Pilgrim Adept’s eyes and thrust it behind him.
“First the service for which I sought you out,” he reminded Lythande.
Lythande seemed to grow even taller, looming over Rastafyre as if to fill the whole room. The magician’s voice, though not loud, seemed to resonate like a great drum.
“Wretch, incompetent, do you dare to haggle with me over my own possession? Fool, it is no more yours than mine—less, for these hands brought the first music from it before you knew how to turn goat’s milk sour on the dungheap where you were whelped! By what right do you demand a service of me?”
The bald little man raised his chin and said firmly. “All the world knows that Lythande is a servant of L-L-Law and not of Chaos, and no ma-ma-magician bound to the L-Law would demean hi-hi-himself to cheat an honest ma-ma-man. And what is more, noble Ly-Lythande, this instru—tru-tru—this lute has been cha-changed since it dwelt in your ha-ha-hands. Behold!”
Rastafyre struck a soft chord on the lute and began to play a soft, melancholy tune. Lythande scowled and demanded, “What do you—?”
Rastafyre gestured imperatively for silence. As the notes quivered in the air, there was a little stirring in the dark hallway, and suddenly, in the heavy air, a woman stood before them.
She was small and slender, with flowing fair hair, clad in the thinnest gown of spider-silk from the forests of Noidhan. Her eyes were blue, set deep under dark lashes in a lovely face; but the face was sorrowful and full of pain. She said in a lovely singing voice “Who thus disturbs the sleep of the enchanted?”
?
??Koira!” cried Lythande, and the neutral voice for once was high, athrob with agony. “Koira, how—what—?”
The fair-haired woman moved her hands in a spell-bound gesture. She murmured, “I know not—” and then, as if waking from deep sleep, she rubbed her eyes and cried out, “Ah, I thought I heard a voice that once I knew—Lythande, is it you? Was it you who enchanted me here, because I turned from you to the love of another? What would you? I was a woman—”
“Silence,” said Lythande in a stifled voice, and Rastafyre saw the magician’s mouth move as if in pain.
“As you see,” said Rastafyre, “it is no longer the lute you knew.”
The woman’s face was fading into air, and Lythande’s taut voice whispered, “Where did she go? Summon her back for me!”
“She is now the slave of the enchanted lute,” said Rastafyre, chuckling with what seemed obscene enthusiasm, “I could have had her for any service—but to ease your fastidious soul, magician, I will confess that I prefer my women more—” his hands sketched robust curves in the air, “So I have asked other, only, that now and again she sing to the lute—knew you not this, Lythande? Was it not you who enchanted the woman thither, as she said?”
Within the hood Lythande’s head moved in a negative shake, side to side. The face could not be seen, and Rastafyre wondered if he would, after all, be the first to see the mysterious Lythande weep. None had ever seen Lythande show the slightest emotion; never had Lythande been known to eat or to drink wine in company—perhaps, it was believed, the mage could not, though most people guessed that it was simply one of the strange vows which bound a Pilgrim Adept.
But from within the hood, Lythande said slowly, “And you offer me this lute, in return for my services in the recovery of your wand?”
“I do, O noble Lythande. For I can see that the enchanted la-la-lady of the lute is known to you from old, and that you would have her as slave, concubine—what have you. And it is this, not the mu-mu-music of the lute alone, that I offer you—when my wa-wa-wand is my own again.”
The blaze of the blue star brightened for a moment, then dimmed to a passive glow, and Lythande s voice was flat and neutral again.
“Be it so. For this lute I would undertake to recover the scattered pearls of the necklace of the Fish-goddess should she lose them in the sea; but are you certain that your wand is in the hands of Roygan the Proud, O Rastafyre?”
“I ha-ha-have no other en-en-enem—there is no one else who hates me,” said Rastafyre, and again the restrained mirth gleamed for a moment.
“Fortunate are you, O Incom—” the hesitation, and the faint smile, “Incomparable. Well, I shall recover your wand—and the lute shall be mine.”
“The lute—and the woman,” said Rastafyre, “but only wh-wh-when my wand is again in my own ha-ha-hands.”
“If Roygan has it,” Lythande said, “it should present no very great difficulties for any competent magician.”
Rastafyre wrapped the lute into the thick protective covering and fumbled it again into Ca-Ca-Carriers capacious folds. Rastafyre gestured fussily with another spell.
“In the name of—” He mumbled something, then frowned. “It will not obey me so well without my wa-wa-wand,” he mumbled. Again his hands twisted in the simple spell. “G-g-go, confound you, in the name of Indo-do-do in the name of Indo-do—”
The bag flopped just a little and a corner of it disappeared, but the rest remained, hovering uneasily to the air.
Lythande managed somehow not to shriek with laughter, but remarked, “Allow me, O Incomp—O Incomparable,” and made the spell with swift narrow fingers. “In the name of Indovici the Silent, I command you. Carrier—”
“Ca-Ca-Carrier,” corrected Rastafyre, and Lythande, lips twitching, repeated the spell.
“In the name of Indovici the Silent, Ca-Ca-Carrier, I command you, go!”
The bag began slowly to fade, winked in and out for a moment, rose heavily into the air, and by the time it reached eye level, was gone.
“Indeed, bargain or no,” Lythande said, “I must recover your wand, O Incompetent, lest the profession of magician become a jest for small boys from the Salt Desert to the Cold Hills!”
Rastafyre glared, but thought better of answering; he turned and fussed away, trailed by a small, lumpy brown shadow where Ca-Ca-Carrier stubbornly refused to stay either visible or invisible. Lythande watched him out of sight, then drew from the mage-robe a small pouch, shook out a small quantity of herbs and thoughtfully rolled them into a narrow tube; snapped narrow fingers to make a light, and slowly inhaled the fragrant smoke, letting it trickle out narrow nostrils into the heavy air of the hallway.
Roygan the Proud should present no very great challenge. Lythande knew Roygan of old; when that thief among magicians had first appeared in Lythande’s life, Lythande had been young in sorcery and not yet tried in vigilance, and several precious items had vanished without trace from the house where Lythande then dwelt. Rastafyre would have been so easy a target that Lythande marveled that Roygan had not stolen Ca-Ca-Carrier, the hood and mage-robe Rastafyre wore, and perhaps his back teeth as well; there was an old saying in Gandrin, if Roygan the Proud, shakes your hand, count your fingers before he is out of sight.
But Lythande had pursued Roygan through three cities and across the Great Salt Desert; and when Roygan had been trailed to his lair, Lythande had recovered wand, rings and magical dagger; and then had affixed one of the rings to Roygan’s nose with a permanent binding-spell.
Wear this, Lythande had said, in memory of your treachery, and that honest folk may know you and avoid you. Now Lythande wondered idly if Roygan had ever found anyone to take the ring off his nose.
Roygan bears me a grudge, thought Lythande, and wondered if Rastafyre the Incompetent, lute and all, were a trap set for Lythande, to surprise the secret of the Pilgrim Adept’s magic. For the strength of any Adept of the Blue Star lies in a certain concealed secret which must never be known; and the one who surprises the secret of a Pilgrim Adept can master all the magic of the Blue Star. And Roygan, with his grudge....
Roygan was not worth worrying about. But, Lythande thought, I have enemies among the Pilgrim Adepts themselves. Roygan might well be a tool of one of these. And so might Rastafyre.
No, Roygan had not the strength for that; he was a thief, not a true magician or an adept. As for Rastafyre—soundlessly, Lythande laughed. If anyone sought to use that incompetent, the very incompetence of the fat, fussy little magician would recoil upon the accomplice. I wish no worse for my enemies than Rastafyre for their friend.
And when I have succeeded—it never occurred to Lythande to say if—I shall have Koira; and the lute. She would not love me; but now, whether or no, she shall be mine, to sing for me whenever I will.
If it should become known to Lythande’s enemies—and the magician knew that there were many of them, even here in Gandrin—that Roygan had somehow incurred the wrath of a Pilgrim Adept, they would be quick to sell the story to any other Pilgrim Adept they could find. Lythande, too, knew how to use that tactic; the knowledge of another Pilgrim Adept’s Secret was the greatest protection known under the Two Suns.
Speaking of Suns—Lythande cast a glance into the sky—it was near to First-sunset; Keth, red and somber, glowed on the horizon, with Reth like a bloody burning eye, an hour or two behind. Curse it, it was one of those nights where there would be long darkness. Lythande frowned, considering; but the darkness, too, could serve.
First Lythande must determine where in Old Gandrin, what corner or alley of that city of rogues and impostors, Roygan might be hiding.
Was there any Adept of the Blue Star who knew of the quarrel with Roygan? Lythande thought not. They had been alone when the deed was done; and Roygan would hardly boast of it; no doubt, that wretch had declared the ring in his nose to be a new fashion in jewelry! Therefore, by the Great Law of Magic, the law of Resonance, Lythande still possessed a tie to Roygan; the ring which once had been Lythande’s
own, if it was still on Roygan’s nose, would lead to Roygan just as inescapably as a homing pigeon flies to its own croft.
There was no time to lose; Lythande would rather not brave the hiding place of Roygan the thief in full darkness, and already red Keth had slipped below the edge of the world. Two measures, perhaps, on a time-candle; no more time than that, or darkness would help to hide Roygan beneath its cloak, in the somber moonless streets of Old Gandrin.
The Pilgrim Adept needs no wand to make magic. Lythande raised one narrow, fine hand, drew it down to a curious, covering movement. Darkness flowed down from the slender fingers behind that movement, covering the magician with its veil; but inside the spelled circle, Lythande sat cross-legged on the stones, flooded with a neutral shadowless light.
Holding one hand toward the circle, Lythande whispered, “Ring of Lythande, ring which once caressed my finger, be joined to your sister.”
Slowly the ring remaining on Lythande’s finger began to gleam with an inner radiance. Beside it in the curious light, a second ring appeared, hanging formless and weightless in midair. And around this second ghost-ring, a pallid face took outline, first the beaky and aquiline nose, then the mouthful of broken teeth which had been tipped like fangs with shining metal, then the close-set dark-lashed eyes of Roygan the Proud.
He was not here within the spelled light-circle, Lythande knew that. Rather, the circle, like a mirror, reflected Roygan’s face, and at a commanding gesture, the focus of the vision moved out, to encompass a room piled high with treasure, where Roygan had come to hide the fruits of his theft. Magpie Roygan! He did not use his treasure to enrich himself—like Lythande, he could have manufactured jewels at will—but to gain power over other magicians! And so, the links retaining their hold on their owners, Roygan was vulnerable to Lythande’s magic as well.
If Rastafyre had been even a halfway competent magician—even the thought of that tubby little bungler curved Lythande’s thin lips in a mocking smile—Rastafyre would have known of that bond, and tracked Roygan the Proud himself. For the wand of a magician is a curious thing; in a very real sense it is the magician, for he must put into it one of his very real powers and senses. As the Blue Star, in a way, was Lythande’s emotion—for it glowed with blue flame when Lythande was angry or excited—so a wand, to those magicians who must use them, often reflects the most cherished power of a male magician. Again Lythande smiled mockingly; no bedroom athletics, no seduction of magicians’ wives or daughters, till Rastafyre’s wand was in his hand again!