Perhaps I should become a public benefactor, and never restore what Rastafyre considers so important, that the women of my fellow mages may be safe from his wiles! Yet Lythande knew, even as the image lingered, and the amusement, that Rastafyre must have back his wand and with it his power to do good or evil.
For Law strives ever against Chaos, and every human soul must be free to take the part of one or another; this was the basic law that the Gods of Gandrin had established, and that all Gods everywhere stood as representative; that life itself, on the world of the Twin Suns as everywhere till the last star of Eternity is burnt out, is forever embodying that one Great Strife. And Lythande was sworn, through the Blue Star, servant to the Law. To deprive Rastafyre of one jot of his power to choose good or evil was to set that basic truth at naught, setting Lythande’s oath to Law in the place of Rastafyre’s own choices, and that in itself was to let in Chaos.
And the karma of Lythande should stand forever responsible for the choice of Rastafyre. Guardians of the Blue Star, stand witness I want no such power, I carry enough karma of my own! I have set enough causes in motion and must see all their effects... abiding even to the Last Battle!
The image of Roygan, ring in nose, still hung in the air, and around it the pattern of Roygan’s treasure room. But try as Lythande would, the Pilgrim Adept could not focus the image sufficiently to see if the wand of Rastafyre was among his treasure. So Lythande, with a commanding gesture, expanded the circle of vision still further, to include a street outside whatever cellar or storeroom held Roygan and his treasures. The circle expanded farther and farther, till at last the magician saw a known landmark: the Fountain of Mermaids, in the Street of the Seven Sailmakers. From there, apparently, the treasure room of Roygan the Thief must be situated.
And Rastafyre had risked his wand for an affair with Roygan’s wife. Truly, Lythande thought, my maxim is well-chosen, that a mage should have neither sweetheart nor wife... and bitterness flooded Lythande, making the Blue Star glimmer; Look what I do. for Koira’s mere image or shadow! But how did Rastafyre know?
For in the days when Koira and Lythande played the lute in the courts of their faraway home, both were young, and no shadow of the Blue Star or Lythande’s quest after magic, even into the hidden Place Which Is Not of the Pilgrim Adepts, had cast its shadow between them. And Lythande had borne another name.
Yet Koira, or her shade, knew me, and called me by the name Lythande bears now. Why called she not... and then, by an enormous effort, almost physical, which brought sweat bursting from the brow beneath the Blue Star, Lythande cut off that memory; with the trained discipline of an Adept, even the memory of the old name vanished.
I am Lythande. The one I was before I bore that name is dead, or wanders in the limbo of the forgotten. With another gesture, Lythande dissolved the spelled circle of light and stood again in the streets of Old Gandrin, where Keth, too, had begun dangerously to approach the horizon.
Lythande set off toward the Street of the Seven Sailmakers. Keeping ever to the shadows which hid the dark mage-robe, and moving as noiselessly as a breath of wind or a cat’s ghost, the Pilgrim Adept traversed a dozen streets, paying little heed to all that inhabited them. Men brawled in taverns, and on the cobbled street merchants sold everything from knives to women; children, grubby and half-naked, played their own obscure games, vaulting over barrels and carts, screaming with all the joys and tantrums of innocence. Lythande, intent on the magical mission, hardly saw or heard them.
At the Fountain of Mermaids, half a dozen women, draped in the loose robes which made even an ugly woman mysterious and alluring, drew water from the bubbling spring, chirping and twittering like birds. Lythande watched them with a curious, aching sadness. It would have been better to await their going, for the comings and goings of a Pilgrim Adept are better not gossiped about; but Reth was perilously near the horizon and Lythande sensed, in the way a magician will always know a danger, that even a Pilgrim Adept should not attempt to invade the quarters of Roygan the Proud under cover of total night.
They dissolved away, clutching with murmurs at their children, as Lythande appeared noiselessly, as if from thin air, at the edge of the fountain square. One child clung, giggling, to one of the sculptured mermaids, and the mother, who seemed to Lythande little more than a child herself, came and snatched it up, covertly making the sign against the Evil Eye—but not covertly enough. Lythande stood directly barring her path back to the other women, and said “Do you believe, woman, that I would curse you or your child?”
The woman looked at the ground, scuffing her sandaled foot on the cobbles, but her hands, clutching the child to her breast, were white at the knuckles with fear, and Lythande sighed. Why did I do that? At the sound of the sigh, the woman looked up, a quick darting glance like a bird’s, as quickly averted.
“The blinded eye of Keth witness that I mean no harm to you or your child, and I would bless you if I knew any blessings,” Lythande said at last, and faded into shadow so that the woman could gather the courage to scamper away across the street, her child’s grubby head clutched against her breast. The encounter had left a taste of bitterness in Lythande’s mouth, but with iron discipline, the magician let it slide away into limbo, to be taken out and examined, perhaps, when the bitterness had been attenuated by Time.
“Ring, sister of Roygan’s ring, show me where, in the nose of Roygan the thief, I must seek you!”
One of the shadowed buildings edging the square seemed to fade somewhat in the dying sunset; through the walls of the building, Lythande could see rooms, walls, shadows, the moving shadow of a woman unveiled, a saucy round-bodied little creature with ringlets tumbled over a low brow, and the mark of a dimple in her chin, and great dark-lashed eyes. So this was the woman for whom Rastafyre the Incompetent had risked wand and magic and the vengeance of Roygan?
Do I scorn his choice because that path is barred to me?
Still; madness, between the choice of love and power, to choose such counterfeit of love as such a woman could give. For, silently approaching the walls which were all but transparent to Lythande’s spelled Sight, the Pilgrim Adept could see beneath the outer surface of artless coquetry, down to the very core of selfishness and greed within the woman, her grasping at treasures, not for their beauty, but for the power they gave her. Rastafyre had not seen so deep within. Was he blinded by lust, then, or was it only farther evidence of the name Lythande had given him, Incompetent?
With a gesture, Lythande banished the spelled Sight; there was no need of it now, but there was need of haste, for Keth’s orange rim actually caressed the western rim of the world. Yet I can be in, and out, unseen, before the light is wholly gone, Lythande thought, and, gesturing darkness to rise like a more enveloping mage-robe, stepped through the stone wall. It felt grainy, like walking through maize-dough, but nothing worse. Nevertheless Lythande hastened, pulling against the resistance of the stone; there were tales, horror tales told in the outer courts of the Pilgrim Adepts where this art was taught, of an Adept of the Blue Star who had lost his courage halfway through the wall, and stuck there, half of his body still trapped within the stone, shrieking with pain until he died... Lythande hated to risk this walking through walls, and usually relied on silence, stealth and spells applied to locks. But there was no time even to find the locks, far less to sound them out by magic and press by magic upon the sensitive tumblers of the bolts. When all the magician’s body was within the shadowy room, Lythande drew a breath of relief; even the smell of mold and cobwebs was preferable to the grainy feel of the wall, and now, whatever came, Lythande resolved to go out by the door.
~o0o~
And now, in the heavy darkness of Roygan’s treasure room, the light of the Blue Star alone would serve; Lythande felt the curious prickling, half pain, as the Blue Star began to glow... a blue light stole through the darkness, and by that subtle illumination, the Pilgrim Adept made out the contours of great chests, carelessly heaped jewels, bolted boxes...
where, in all this hodgepodge of stolen treasure, laid up magpie fashion by Roygan’s greed, was Rastafyre’s wand to be found? Lythande paused, thoughtful, by one great heap of jewels, rubies blazing like Keth’s rays at sunrise, sapphires flung like dazzling reflections of the light of the Blue Star, a superb diamond necklace, loosely flung like a constellation blazing beneath the pole-star of a single great gem. Lythande had spoken truly to Rastafyre, jewels were no temptation, yet for a moment the magician thought almost sadly of the women whose throats and slender arms and fingers had once been adorned with these jewels; why should Roygan profit by their great losses, if they felt the need of these toys and trinkets to enhance their beauty? And Lythande hesitated, considering. There was a spell which, once spoken, would disperse all these jewels back to their rightful owners, by the Law of Resonances.
Yet why should Lythande take on the karma of these unknown women, women Lythande would never see or know? If it had not been their just fate to lose the jewels to the clever hands of a thief, no doubt Roygan would have sought in vain for the keys to their treasure chests.
By that same token, why should I interfere with my magic in the just karma of Rastafyre, who lost his wand because he could not contain his lust for the wife of Roygan? Would not the loss of wand and virility teach him a just respect for the discipline of continence? It would not be for long, only till he could take the trouble to fashion and consecrate another wand of Power....
But Lythande had given the word of a Pilgrim Adept; for the honor of the Blue Star, what was promised must be performed. Sworn to the Law, it was Lythande’s sworn duty to punish a thief, and all the more because Roygan preyed, not on Lythande whose defenses were sufficient for revenge, but upon the harmless Rastafyre... and if Roygan’s wife found him not sufficient, then that was Roygan’s karma too. Shivering somewhat in the darkness of the storeroom, Lythande whispered the spell that would make the treasure boxes transparent to the Sight. By the witchlight, Lythande scanned box after box, seeing nothing which might, by the remotest chance, be the wand of Rastafyre.
And outside the light was fading fast, and in the darkness, all the things of magic would be loosed....
And as if the thought had summoned it, suddenly it was there, though Lythande had not seen any door by which it could have entered the treasure chamber, a great grey shape, leaping high at the mage’s throat. Lythande whirled, whipping out the dagger on the right, and thrust, hard, at the bane-wolf’s throat.
It went through the throat as if through air. Not a true beast, then, but a magical one.... Lythande dropped the right-hand dagger, and snatched, left-handed, at the other, the dagger intended for fighting the powers and beasts of magic; but the delay had been nearly fatal; the teeth of the bane-wolf met, like fiery needles, in Lythande’s right arm, forcing a cry from the magician’s lips. It went unheard; the magical beast fought in silence, without a snarl or a sound even of breathing; Lythande thrust with the left-hand dagger, but could not reach the heart; then the bane-wolf’s uncanny weight bore Lythande, writhing, to the ground. Again the needle-teeth of the enchanted creature met like flame in Lythande’s shoulder, then in the knee thrust up to ward the beast from the throat. Lythande knew; if the fiery teeth met but once in the throat, it would cut off breath and life. Slowly, painfully, fighting upward, thrusting again and again, Lythande managed to wrestle the beast back, at the cost of bite after bite from the cruel flame-teeth; the bane-wolfs blazing eyes flashed against the light of the Blue Star, which grew fainter and feebler as Lythande’s struggles weakened.
Have I come this far to die in a dark cellar in the maw of a wolf, and not even a true wolf, but a thing created by the filthy misuse of sorcery at the hands of a thief?
The thought maddened the magician, with a fierce effort, Lythande thrust the magical dagger deeper into the shoulder of the were-beast, seeking for the heart. With the full thrust of the spell, backed by all Lythande’s agony, the magician’s very arm thrust through unnatural flesh and bone, striking inward to the lungs, into the very heart of the creature... the blazing breath of the wolf smoked and failed; Lythande withdrew arm and dagger, slimed with the magical blood, as the beast, to eerie silence, writhed and died on the floor, slowly curling and melting into wisps of smoke, until only a little heap of ember, like burnt blood, remained on to floor of the treasure room.
Lythande’s breath came loud in the silence as the Pilgrim Adept wiped the slime from the magical dagger, thrust it back into one sheath, then sought on the floor for where the right-hand dagger had fallen. There was slime on the magician’s left hand, too, and the Adept wiped it, viciously, on a bolt of precious velvet; Roygan’s things to Roygan, then! When the right-hand dagger was safe again in the other sheath, Lythande turned to the frantic search again for Rastafyre’s wand. It was not to be thought of, that there would be much more time. Even if Roygan toyed with the wife who was all his now Rastafyre’s power was gone, he could not stay with her forever, and if his magical power had created the bane-wolf, surely the death of the creature, drawing as it did on Roygan’s own vitality, would alert him to the intrusion into his treasure room.
Through the lid of one of the boxes, Lythande could see, in the magical witchlight which responded only to the things of magical Power, a long narrow shape, wrapped in silks but still glowing with the light that singled out the things of magic. Surely that must be Rastafyre’s wand, unless Roygan the Thief had a collection of such things—and the kind of incompetence which had allowed Roygan to get the wand was uncommon among magicians... praise to Keth’s all-seeing eye!
Lythande fumbled with the lock. Now that the excitement of the fight with the bane-wolf had subsided, shoulder and arm were aching like half-healed burns where the enchanted teeth had met in Lythande’s flesh. Worse than burns, perhaps, Lythande thought, for they might not yield to ordinary burn remedies! The magician wanted to tear off the tattered tunic where the bane-wolf had torn, but there were reasons not to do this within an enemy’s stronghold! Lythande drew the mage-robe’s folds closer, bitten hands wrenching at the bolts. The Pilgrim Adept was very strong; unlike those magicians who relied always on magic and avoided exertion, Lythande had traveled afoot and alone over all the highroads and by-roads lighted by the Twin Suns, and the wiry arms, the elegant-looking hands, had the strength of the daggers they wielded. After a moment the first hinge of the chest yielded, with a sound as loud, in the darkening cellar, as the explosion of fireworks; Lythande flinched at the sound... surely even Roygan must hear that in his wife’s very chamber! Now for the other hinge. The bitten hands were growing more painful by the moment; Lythande took the right-hand dagger, the one intended for objects which were natural and not magic, and tried to wedge it under the hinge, prying to grim silence without success. Was the damned thing spelled shut? No; for then Lythande’s hands alone could not have budged the first bolt. Blood was dripping from the blistered hand before the second lock gave way, and Lythande reached into the chest, and recoiled as if from the very teeth of the bane-wolf. Howling with rage and pain and frustration, Lythande swept into the chest with the left-hand dagger; there was a small ghastly shrilling and something ugly, horrible and only half visible, writhed and died. But now Lythande held the wand of Rastafyre, triumphant.
Wincing at the pain, Lythande stripped the concealing cloths from the wand. A grimace of distaste came over the magician’s narrow face as the phallic carvings and shape of the wand were revealed, but after all, this had been fairly obvious—that Rastafyre would arm his wand with his manhood. It was, after all, his own problem; it was not Lythande’s karma to teach other magicians either discretion or manners. A bargain had been made and a service should be performed.
Hastily wadding the protective silks around the wand—it was easier to handle that way, and Lythande had no wish even to look upon the gross thing—Lythande turned to the business of getting out again. Not through the walls. Darkness had surely fallen by now; though in the windowless treasure-room it was hard to tell,
but there must be a door somewhere.
Lythande had heard nothing; but abruptly, as the witchlight flared, Roygan the Proud stood directly in the center of the room.
“So, Lythande the Magician is Lythande the Thief! How like you the business of thievery, then, Magician?”
A trap, then. But Lythande’s mellow, neutral voice was calm.
“It is written; from the thief all shall be stolen at last. By the ring in your nose, Roygan; you know the truth of what I say.”
With an inarticulate howl of rage, Roygan hurled himself at Lythande. The magician stepped aside, and Roygan hurtled against a chest, giving a furious yelp of pain as his knees collided with the metalled edge of the chest. He whirled, but Lythande, dagger in hand, stood facing him.
“Ring of Lythande, ring of Roygan’s shame, be welded to this,” Lythande murmured, and the dagger flung itself against Roygan’s face. Roygan grunted with pain as Lythande’s dagger molded itself against the ring, curling around his face.
“Ai! Ai! Take it off, damn you by every god and godlet of Gandrin, or I—”
“You will what?” demanded Lythande, looking with an aloof grin at Roygan’s face, the dagger curled around the end of his nose, and gripping, as if by a powerful magnet, at the metal tips of Roygan’s teeth. Furious, howling, Roygan flung himself again at Lythande, his yell wordless now as the metal of the dagger fastened itself tighter to his teeth. Lythande laughed, stepping free easily from Roygan’s clutching hands; but the thief’s face was alight with sudden triumphant glee.