Time passed and he lost all sense of who or what he was, or where, or what he was doing. He even ceased to perceive the presence of his companion. His universe was only motion, constant forward motion. He was truly a river otter now, nothing but a river otter, joyously hurling himself through the cosmos.
But then his otter senses detected a sound to his left that no otter would be concerned with, and whatever was still human in him registered the fact that it was a cry of panic, a sharp little gasp of fear, coming from a member of his former species. He pivoted to look and saw that V. Halabant had reverted to human form and was thrashing about in what seemed to be the last stages of exhaustion. Her arms beat the air, her head tossed wildly, her eyes were rolled back in her head. She was trying to make her way to the riverbank, but she did not appear to have the strength to do it.
Gannin Thidrich understood that in his jubilant onward progress he had led her too far down the river, pulling her along beyond her endurance, that as an otter he was far stronger than she and by following him she had exceeded her otter abilities and could go no farther. Perhaps she was in danger of drowning, even. Could an otter drown? But she was no longer an otter. He knew that he had to get her ashore. He swam to her side and pushed futilely against her with his river-otter nose, trying in vain to clasp her with the tiny otter flippers that had replaced his arms. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared into his, and smiled, and spoke two words, the counterspell, and Gannin Thidrich discovered that he too was in human form again. They were both naked. He found that they were close enough now to the shore that his feet were able to touch the bottom. Slipping his arm around her, just below her breasts, he tugged her along, steadily, easily, toward the nearby riverbank. He scrambled ashore, pulling her with him, and they dropped down gasping for breath at the river’s edge under the warm spring sunshine.
They were far out of town, he realized, all alone in the empty but not desolate countryside. The bank was soft with mosses. Gannin Thidrich recovered his breath almost at once; Halabant took longer, but before long she too was breathing normally. Her face was flushed and mottled with signs of strain, though, and she was biting down on her lip as though trying to hold something back, something which Gannin Thidrich understood, a moment later, to be tears. Abruptly she was furiously sobbing. He held her, tried to comfort her, but she shook him off. She would not or could not look at him.
“To be so weak—” she muttered. “I was going under. I almost drowned. And to have you see it – you – you—”
So she was angry with herself for having shown herself, at least in this, to be inferior to him. That was ridiculous, he thought. She might be a master sorcerer and he only a novice, yes, but he was a man, nevertheless, and she a woman, and men tended to be physically stronger than women, on the average, and probably that was true among otters too. If she had displayed weakness during their wild swim, it was a forgivable weakness, which only exacerbated his love for her. He murmured words of comfort to her, and was so bold to put his arm about her shoulders, and then, suddenly, astonishingly, everything changed, she pressed her bare body against him, she clung to him, she sought his lips with a hunger that was almost frightening, she opened her legs to him, she opened everything to him, she drew him down into her body and her soul.
Afterward, when it seemed appropriate to return to the city, it was necessary to call on her resources of sorcery once more. They both were naked, and many miles downstream from where they needed to be. She seemed not to want to risk returning to the otter form again, but there were other spells of transportation at her command, and she used one that brought them instantly back to West Triggoin, where their clothing and even the rope with which Gannin Thidrich had bound himself were lying in damp heaps near the place where he had thrown himself into the river. They dressed in silence and in silence they made their way, walking several feet apart, back to her flat.
He had no idea what would happen now. Already she appeared to be retreating behind that wall of untouchability that had surrounded her since the beginning. What had taken place between them on the riverbank was irreversible, but it would not transform their strange relationship unless she permitted it to, Gannin Thidrich knew, and he wondered whether she would. He did not intend to make any new aggressive moves without some sort of guidance from her.
And indeed it appeared that she intended to pretend that nothing had occurred at all, neither his absurd suicide attempt nor her foiling of it by following him to the river and turning them into otters nor the frenzied, frenetic, almost insane coupling that had been the unexpected climax of their long swim. All was back to normal between them as soon as they were at the flat: she was the master, he was the drudge, they slept in their separate rooms, and when during the following day’s lessons he bungled a spell, as even now he still sometimes did, she berated him in the usual cruel, cutting way that was the verbal equivalent of transforming him once again into a sandroach. What, then, was he left with? The taste of her on his lips, the sound of her passionate outcries in his ears, the feel of the firm ripe swells of her breasts against the palms of his hands?
On occasions over the next few days, though, he caught sight of her studying him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, and he was the recipient of a few not so surreptitious smiles that struck him as having genuine warmth in them, and when he ventured a smile of his own in her direction it was met with another smile instead of a scowl. But he hesitated to try any sort of follow-up maneuver. Matters still struck him as too precariously balanced between them.
Then, a week later, during their morning lesson, she said briskly, “Take down these words: Psakerba enphnoun orgogorgo-niotrian phorbai. Do you recognize them?”
“No,” said Gannin Thidrich, baffled.
“They are the opening incantation of the spell known as the Sublime Arcanum,” said Halabant.
A thrill rocketed down his spine. The Sublime Arcanum at last! So she had decided to trust him with the master spell, finally, the great opener of so many gates! She no longer thought of him as a fool who could not be permitted knowledge of it.
It was a good sign, he thought. Something was changing.
Perhaps she was still trying to pretend even now that none of it had ever happened, the event by the riverbank. But it had, it had, and it was having its effect on her, however hard she might be battling against it, and he knew now that he would go on searching, forever if necessary, for the key that would unlock her a second time.
5
Dark Times at the Midnight Market
Business was slow nowadays for the spellmongers of Bombifale’s famed Midnight Market, and getting slower all the time. No one regretted that more than Ghambivole Zwoll, licensed dealer in potions and spells: a person of the Vroonish race, a small many-tentacled creature with a jutting beak and fiery yellow eyes, who represented the fourth generation of his line to hold the fifth stall in the leftmost rank of the back room of the Midnight Market of Bombifale.
Oh, the glorious times he could remember! The crowds of eager buyers for the wizardry he had for sale! The challenges triumphantly met, the wonders of conjuring that he had performed! In those great days of yore he had moved without fear through the strangest of realms, journeying among the cockatrices and gorgons, the flame-spitting basilisks and winged serpents, the universes beyond the universe, to bring back the secrets needed to meet the demands of his insatiable clients.
But now – but now – !
Popular interest in the various thaumaturgic arts, which had begun to sprout on Majipoor in the reign of the Coronal Lord Prankipin, had grown into a wild planetwide craze in the days of his glorious successor Lord Confalume. That king’s personal dabblings in sorcery had done much to spur the mode for it. But it had been gradually waning during the reigns of the more skeptical monarchs who had followed him, Lord Prestimion and then Lord Dekkeret, and now, a century and more after Dekkeret’s time, sorcery had become a mere minor commodity, neither more nor less in demand than pe
pper, wine, dishware, or any other commonly used good. When one had need, one consulted the appropriate sort of wizard; but the era when a magus would be besieged by importunate patrons all through the hours of the clock was long over.
In those days the sorcerers’ section of the market was open only on the first and third Seadays of the month, creating pent-up demand that helped to spur a sense of urgency among the purchasers. But for the past decade the wizards had of necessity kept their shops open night after night to make themselves readily available to such few customers as did appear, and even so their trade seemed to be waning steadily year after year.
Even a dozen years ago Ghambivole Zwoll had had more work than he could handle. But two years back he had been forced to take in a partner, Shostik-Willeron of the Su-Suheris race, and together they barely managed to eke out a modest living in this era of diminishing fascination with all forms of magecraft. Their coffers were dipping ever lower, their debts were mounting to an uncomfortable level, and they were near the point where they might have to discharge their one employee, the stolid, husky Skandar woman who swept and tidied for them every evening before the shop opened. So it was a matter of some excitement one night, three hours past midnight, when a tall, swaggering young man clad in the flamboyant garb of an aristocrat, close-fitting blue coat with ruffled sleeves trimmed with gold, flaring skirts, wide-brimmed hat trimmed with leather of some costly sort, came sweeping into their shop.
He was red-haired, blue-eyed, handsome, energetic. He had the look of wealth about him. But there was something else about him, or so it seemed to Ghambivole Zwoll, the smirking set of his mouth, the overly rakish slant of his hat, that cried, scoundrel, wastrel, idler.
No matter. Ghambivole Zwoll had dealt with plenty of those in his time. So long as they paid their bills on time, Ghambivole Zwoll had no concern with his clients’ moral failings.
The proud lordling struck a lofty pose, his hand resting on the gleaming hilt of the sword that hung from a broad beribboned baldrick at his side, and boomed, “I will have a love potion, if you please. To snare the heart of a lady of the highest birth! And I mean to spare no expense.”
Ghambivole Zwoll masked his joy with a calm businesslike demeanor. He stared up – and up and up and up, for the new client was very tall indeed and Vroons are diminutive beings, knee-high at best to humans – and said judiciously, “Yes, yes, of course. We offer such compounds at every level of efficacy and potency.” He reached for a writing tablet. “Your name, please?” He expected some fanciful pseudonym. Instead his visitor said grandly, “I am the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran, fourth son of the third son of the Count of Canzilaine.”
“Indeed,” said Ghambivole Zwoll, a little stunned, for the Count of Canzilaine was one of the wealthiest and most influential men of Castle Mount. He looked across the room toward the towering figure of Shostik-Willeron, standing against the far wall. The Su-Suheris appeared to be displaying mixed emotions, his optimistic right-hand head glittering with pleasure at the prospect of a hefty fee but the left-hand head, which disliked such high-born fops as this, glowering in distaste. The Vroon shot him a quick bright-eyed glance to let him know that he would handle this client without interference. “I’ll need to know the details of your requirements, of course.”
“Details?”
“The goal you hope to achieve – whether it be only a seduction and light romance, or something deeper, leading, even, perhaps to a marriage. And some information about the lady’s age and physical appearance, her approximate height and weight, you understand, so that we may calculate the proper dosage.” He risked letting the intense blaze of his yellow eyes meet the blander gaze of the marquis. As tactfully as he could he said, “You will, I hope, be forthcoming about these matters, or it may be difficult to fulfill your needs. She is young, I take it?”
“Of course. Eighteen.”
“Ah. Eighteen.” The Vroon delicately looked away. “And of limited sexual experience, perhaps? I have no wish to pry, you understand, but in order to calculate—”
“Yes,” said the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran. “I hold nothing back from you. She is a virgin of the purest purity.”
“Ah,” said Ghambivole Zwoll.
“And moves in the highest circles at court. She is in fact the Lady Alesarda of Muldemar, of whose beauty and wit you undoubtedly have heard report.”
That was jolting news. Ghambivole Zwoll fought to hide any show of the concern that that lady’s name had awakened in him, but he was unable to fight back a complex, anguished writhing of his innumerable tentacles. “The Lady – Alesarda – of Muldemar,” the Vroon said slowly. “Ah. Ah.” His partner was glaring furiously at him now from his station in the corner shadows, the wary left-hand head glowering with wrath and even the normally cheerful right one showing alarm. “I have heard the name. She is, I believe, of royal lineage?”
“Sixth in descent from the Pontifex Prestimion himself.”
“Ah. Ah. Ah.” Ghambivole Zwoll saw that they were getting into exceedingly deep waters. He wished the marquis had kept the lady’s identity to himself. But business was business, and the shop’s exchequer was distressingly low. To mask his uncertainties he scribbled notes for quite some time; and then, looking up at last, said with a cheeriness he certainly did not feel, “We will have what you need in one week’s time. The fee will be – ah—” Quickly, almost desperately, he reckoned the highest price he thought the traffic would bear, and then doubled it, expecting to be haggled with. “Twenty royals.”
“Twenty,” said the marquis impassively. “So be it.” Ghambivole wondered what the response would have been if he had said thirty. Or fifty. It had been so long since he had had a client of the marquis’s station that he had forgotten that such people were utterly indifferent to cost. Well, too late now. “Will a deposit of five cause any difficulties, do you think?”
“Hardly.” Mirl Meldelleran drew a thick, glossy coin from his purse and dropped it on Ghambivole Zwoll’s desk. The Vroon swept it quickly toward him with a trembling tentacle. “One week,” said the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran. “The results, I assume, are guaranteed?”
“Of course,” said Ghambivole Zwoll.
“This is madness,” said Shostik-Willeron, the moment the door of the stall had closed behind the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran and they were alone again. “We will be ruined! A virgin princess of Prestimion’s line, one who moves in the highest circles at court, and you propose to fling her into the bed of the fourth son of a third son?”
“Twenty royals,” Ghambivole Zwoll said. “Do you know what our gross revenue for the past three months has been? Hardly one third as much. I expected him to bargain me down, and I would have settled for ten, or even five. Or three or two. But twenty – twenty!—”
“The risk is tremendous. The sellers of the potion will be traced.”
“What of it? We are not the ones who will debauch the young princess.”
“But it’s an abomination, Ghambivole!” The words were coming from the right-hand head, and that gave Ghambivole Zwoll pause, for the right-hand head always brimmed with enthusiasm and exuberance, while it was the other, the dominant left head, that was ever urging caution. “We’ll be whipped! We’ll be flayed!”
“We are only purveyors, nothing more. We are protected by the mercantile laws. What we sell is legal, and what he plans to use it for is legal too, however deplorable. The girl is of age.”
“So he says.”
“If he’s lied to me about it, the sin is his. Do you think I would dare to ask the grandson of the Count of Canzilaine for an affidavit?”
“But even so, Ghambivole—”
“Twenty royals, Shostik-Willeron.”
They argued over it another fifteen minutes. But in the end the Vroon won, as he knew he would. He was the senior partner; this was his shop, and had been in his family four generations; and he was the only one of the two who had any real skill at wizardry. Shostik-Willeron’s sole contribution to the partnership
had been capital, not any great knowledge of the art; and if the shop failed, the Su-Suheris would lose that capital. They were in no position to turn away such lucrative business, chancy though it might be.
The partners were an oddly assorted pair. Like all the Su-Suheris race, Shostik-Willeron was tall and slender, with a pallid body tapering upward to a narrow forking neck a foot in length, atop which sprouted a pair of hairless, vastly elongated heads, each of which had an independent mind and identity. Ghambivole Zwoll could hardly have looked more different: a tiny person, barely reaching as high as his partner’s shins, fragile and insubstantial of body, with a host of flexible rubbery limbs and a small head out of which jutted a sharp hook of a beak, above which were two huge yellow eyes with horizontal black strips to serve as pupils. There were times when the Vroon barely avoided being trampled by Shostik-Willerson as they moved about their cramped little emporium.
But Ghambivole Zwoll was accustomed to moving in a world of oversized creatures. Vroons were the dominant beings on their own home planet, but giant Majipoor was Ghambivole Zwoll’s native world, his ancestors having arrived in the great wave of Vroon immigration during the reign of Lord Prankipin, and like all his kind he wove his way easily and lithely through throngs of heedless entities of much greater size than he, three and four and even five times his height, not only humans but also the reptilian Ghayrogs and the lofty Su-Suheris and the various other peoples of Majipoor, going on up to the gigantic shaggy four-armed Skandars, who stood eight feet tall and taller. Not even the presence of the ponderous slow-witted Skandar cleaning-woman, Hendaya Zanzan, who moved slowly and clumsily about the shop as she dusted and fussed with its displays, intimidated him with her dangerous bulk.