Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXVI Read online

  "The spell's broken," she said. "You probably ought to do something to keep him," she pointed at Searorun, "from trying anything else. He's the one who laid the spell."

  The Duke beckoned to his men, who had followed him into the village, and before the sorcerer could finish the spell he muttered under his breath they had him tied and gagged and slung over the back of a horse.

  "Now for you," the Duke told King Montgomery. "It seems the Chelmingar captured you honestly."

  "There's a cart load of treasure just the other side of the border—they can have that if they set me free!" the king babbled.

  "They already have the treasure," Janet observed.

  The village headman approached the Duke, bowing deeply. "She did it all, sir. When we were fuddled by the spell, finding ourselves so small, Lady Janet rode through Chelming and gathered us up and made an army! And she just as small, and not even from here." He bowed to Janet, then dropped to his knees before her. "My lady, you have the thanks of every Chelmingar."

  The villagers threatening King Montgomery muttered agreement. "So brave she were!" "She come up with it all on her own, how to fight those Brixtish soldiers." "She said even if we's small as mice, we din't have to be timid as mice!"

  "Well, my dear, you've done a good job here," the Duke told Janet.

  She smiled and bowed to him. "Only as you have taught me, Father," she said quietly.

  "Much good may come of this muddle," the Duke mused, beckoning to his men to take King Montgomery into custody.

  * * * *

  Much good did come of the incident. Lady Janet of Arbinclose married Montgomery etc. etc. the Fourth, to became Queen of Brixton, as Montgomery the Third was forced to abdicate in his son's favor. She forged close ties of friendship between Brixton and both Chelming and Deccalia. King Montgomery was exiled to a small island off the coast of Deccalia, and the sorcerer Searorun was banished to Far Ensurenki—where it is rumored he blew himself and a third of the Ensurenki army into oblivion.

  * * * *

  Queen Janet reined in her horse as a huge voice boomed, seemingly out of nowhere, "Woe, woe, people of the kingdom of Brixton. This day art thou doomed."

  "Oh no you don't," Janet muttered under her breath. As the Queen's Guard surrounded her, she took a bulky packet from her belt pouch and held it high in the air, as if letting it see the surrounding countryside.

  She had been afraid something like this might happen, and had worked with the most puissant sorcerers of Brixton, Chelming, and Deccalia to prepare for this eventuality.

  The booming voice continued, "This day will you die most horribly. Know ye, people of Brixton, that this is the work of King Ottfried Oled Prasfalk Sigwill of Ensurenki."

  "Whatever happens, say nothing," Janet told her guards. She crushed the packet between her palms, and a sharp, musty odor permeated the air around her.

  "Before you die, you will know the futility of resisting King Ott—" The booming pronouncement cut off in mid-word with a strangled squawk.

  She smiled. The packet seemed to have worked just as the sorcerers had said it would, sending the spell back against whoever cast it. She waited for a moment to see if anything else happened. The horses began to look for grass to eat. Finally she turned in her saddle, and said to her guards, "I believe we can go on now."

  "Majesty?" the captain of her Guard asked. "Is all well?"

  "Oh yes," Janet said, wrapping the packet in a piece of silk and putting it in a drawstring bag. "Just dealing with another problem neighbor."

  The Hate-Filled Gnome

  by Joette M. Rozanski

  Just because something is small and looks harmless doesn't mean that it is. This applies to both gnomes and wizards. In fact, this story reminds me—just a bit—of a filk song called "Little Fuzzy Animals."

  Joette Rozanski lives in Toledo, Ohio where she works for a nonprofit organization as a desktop publisher and graphic artist. She enjoys writing science fiction, fantasy and horror stories. She is also a nature photographer who likes to add the occasional fantasy element to the scenery around her. Joette blames her love for fantasy on The Hobbit, which is the first book she ever read and wished never ended.

  #

  "My fingers," Shade said, his gloved right hand curling into a fist, "ache for a sling."

  "Behave yourself," Sharamon told her companion. "It's not that bad."

  Although she had to concede that it very nearly was. Grand oak trees spread their mighty branches overhead as delicate fairies, glowing like fireflies, darted here and there through the dappled sunshine. Violets and tiny wild strawberries lay scattered over the velvety grass. Deer, their silky coats gleaming, wandered through the glades, their numbers joined by several white unicorns.

  Small doors, painted blue or green and carved with leaves, animals or faerie symbols, were set into the trunks of the oaks, indicating that a neighborhood of gnomes dwelt here.

  "I despise the Island of Faerie," Shade snarled. He yanked his dark hood over his head; his painted skull-face gleamed like death and his black eyes glared at the nearest unicorn until it snorted and bounded away. "There is no excuse for naming anything the Happy Tree Forest."

  "We'll be out of here soon enough." Sharamon sighed and shifted her lute across her shoulders, feeling it slide across her silken blue minstrel's jacket. She wanted to serenade the fairies with one of her lighter tunes, but daren't upset her Shadow Wizard partner who might wrap the forest in a dark mist of damp that would make her sneeze for hours.

  She stopped before an oak whose door was etched with moons and stars.

  "This is it. I don't think he'll give us trouble. Faerie magic is quite mild."

  Shade grimaced. "We should slit his throat in his sleep. That's what assassins do. Not ask nicely for him to give his hostage back."

  "Our client doesn't want that. His clan wouldn't approve."

  She knocked on the door. "Sir Grubbitt, please come out. We need to speak to you."

  The door opened a crack. After a long moment, a small voice quavered:

  "Are…are you vampires?"

  Sharamon smiled at the kidnapper's timidity. "No. We're not vampires."

  "Ghouls, then? That fellow beside you looks like one."

  Shade stepped forward. "Listen to me, you little toad. I'm a Necromancer, a Shadow Wizard from the Island of Horrors. I'm an assassin who's been told not to harm you, but I don't always follow orders. We're here for the gnome you're holding hostage, so open the damned door and take us to him."

  The door swung wide, revealing a man no taller than Sharamon's waist, dressed in brown felt trousers and jacket, birchbark boots and a tall red cone hat. His brown face was as wrinkled as a walnut and his shiny button eyes glistened with tears.

  "It's all a terrible mistake," Grubbitt whined. "I meant Fung no harm."

  "You sent ransom notes to his clan," Sharamon said. "You threatened to cut parts off of him if you didn't get the money by tomorrow. Some mistake."

  "So his clan sent assassins after me," Grubbitt said, trembling. "Assassins from that nasty Island of Horrors."

  "Not me," Sharamon said. "I'm a Wizard from the Island of Music. I kill people with my songs."

  "Oh, woe is me," Grubbitt moaned, stepping aside. "I did all in jest as the season of Foolery began. His clansmen are a humorless lot."

  Sharamon and Shade bent down and entered the oak. Sharamon's head grazed the ceiling while her partner remained hunched over. Wee wooden chairs, tables, and cupboards filled the round room. Sharamon was enchanted; it reminded her of the playhouse her father built for her when she was a young girl.

  Shade stared at an opening to their right where stairs led down into darkness. Shadows shifted uneasily across the Necromancer's shoulders and his fingers twitched upon the hilts of his twin daggers, Stab and Slice.

  "We're not here to kill you," Sharamon assured Grubbitt. "Fung's clan wanted you to know they were serious about retrieving him; no one is to be harmed unless you force our han
d."

  Grubbitt giggled and began to dance. "No harm, no harm," he sang. "These great brutes mean no harm."

  "Don't listen to him!" A terrified voice came from somewhere below them. "He's mad! He…"

  Sharamon saw Grubbitt reach into his pants pocket and draw out a handful of sparkling dust. She reached for him but was too late. The gnome blew the dust into her face and she fell senseless to the ground.

  * * * *

  Sharamon woke up in what she surmised was the cellar beneath Grubbitt's living space. Rough stone walls surrounded her and she lay across several sacks of flour. A woolen scarf gagged her mouth; her hands were tied tightly behind her back with another scarf and her feet were trussed together with rope. Her lute was gone.

  She pulled herself up to a sitting position and saw she was not alone. Shade sat opposite her, surrounded by the lavender-white glare of several silver faerie lamps. His hands and feet were bound and he was trying to hide his face from the light. His cloak and hood and weapons had been taken from him and she knew the light burned him.

  Another gnome, Fung, she supposed, sat to her left. He, too, was bound hand and foot. His green cone hat sagged over his left ear. Grubbitt stood over Fung, poking his prisoner's snub nose with an apple peeler.

  "One slice," Grubbitt muttered, "one slice and I'll have it for dinner."

  "Fool," Shade said. "Your knife isn't big enough for the job."

  Grubbitt stared at the little blade in his right hand. "The Necromancer says 'tis too small so he must be right. I'll visit the Ogre in the Friendly Ravine and borrow another."

  He ran up the stairs and Sharamon heard a door slam.

  "Thanks for ridding me of that madman, even for a moment," the trussed-up gnome said. "By the way, I'm Fung."

  "We figured that much," Shade snarled. He glanced at Sharamon and then hunched his shoulders up as far as he could. "A fine pair of assassins we make! We assumed too much. Damn, if we don't get out of here under our own power, we'll never get work again."

  "He'll kill you first," Fung said. "He'll grind your bones into dust, just as he did with a troupe of faeries from the next forest."

  Shade perked up. "Necromancy? I underestimated the little blot."

  "Ade! Ade!" Sharamon said, her tongue wrestling with her woolen gag.

  "I see you, Shar," the Shadow Wizard said. "Sorry, but I can't do much with this sickening light on me. Seems Grubbitt knows his Wizards."

  "You are helpless without your lute," Fung said to her. "And I, alas, cannot cavort. Dance is how we gnomes do our magic. Hopping and skipping barefoot across the glades with flowers in our wake…"

  Sharamon cocked her head at him. "Inging oo?"

  "Don't make it worse, Shar," Shade groaned.

  "What did she say?" Fung asked.

  "Do you sing, too?"

  "Yes, song is part of our repertoire but we must have dancing. No dancing, no magic."

  Sharamon smiled. Dancing was used in her Island's magic as well, although she needed music to make it effective. Perhaps if they worked together…

  "Ance!" she cried.

  Fung shook his head. "I'm sorry, my dear. Perhaps if you rolled away from the flour…"

  She looked at the ropes that bound her feet. Ah yes, Grubbitt, like most amateurs, had done a sloppy job. Not only that, but people always assumed Shade was the deadlier partner and secured him well. She, being a petite curly-haired singing maiden, was no threat.

  She stomped her boots on the floor, making Fung look at her.

  "Very good! I'm sure you got them all."

  "Ance!" she cried again.

  "She wants to dance," Shade said, plainly annoyed. "Can that work with non-faeries?"

  Fung looked thoughtful. "Yes, if I sang and she danced barefoot to draw up the power of our Mother Earth, we might get out of here. Alas, we are helpless…"

  "Eeth," she told him. "Ooze eeth."

  "Um…what?"

  "Use your teeth," Shade told him. "Get her boots off and maybe she'll cavort for you."

  "How can you understand her?"

  "We get drunk together a lot."

  "Ut up," Sharamon said as she scooted across the stone floor toward Fung.

  Fung bit the toe of her left boot and pulled; she wriggled her foot until she got it out. She then waved her right boot in the gnome's face; he gnawed the heel this time; she grunted, shifting from side to side and, after several moments, was free. She leaped up and flexed her toes; the ceiling was much higher in the cellar than in Grubbitt's room upstairs.

  She ran to the filigreed faerie lights surrounding Shade and kicked the nearest.

  "Eeeeow!" Sharamon rubbed her big toe against her shin.

  "Heavier than they look," Shade said. "Come on, Shar, don't you think I tried rolling over against them first thing?"

  "Now if we only had music," Fung said.

  "Usic? I eed usic?"

  "Nothing fancy," Fung said. "If one of us could clap or beat a drum or…"

  "Ade! Ooze or ead."

  Shade managed a quick peek at her. "You want me to bang my head against the wall? Really?"

  Fung nodded excitedly. "Try for that wooden support beam, Sir Necromancer."

  Sharamon heard a door shut in the room above them.

  "Urry!"

  Fung said, "All we need is a simple two-step to loosen the ropes on our wrists. Do you know the Derry Slide? It's fairly common across the Islands."

  Sharamon nodded and Fung began singing softly. Shade banged his head against the wooden beam next to him, making a series of rhythmic thuds. Sharamon shuffled her bare feet through the fine spilled flour. She heard footsteps upon the stairs and danced faster, kicking up clouds of dust, feeling the warm power of Mother Earth rise through her body, flowing through the blood in her arms. A few heartbeats of time passed before she felt her bonds fall away.

  The door to the cellar eased open and Grubbitt, his left hand fondling the blade of a knife he held in his right, appeared. The gnome said playfully, "Fung, I think I'll start with you. Big toe or ear? I'll let you choose."

  Sharamon whipped the gag from her mouth and, dispensing with subtlety, shrieked, sending Grubbitt tumbling head over toes with the power of her voice. Several loud clangs sounded behind her and the room grew dark; Sharamon felt Shade's shadows scream past her head and pile on top of the helpless gnome.

  Now that the only light came from the room upstairs, Shade was in his full power. He stood beside Sharamon and breathed heavily. She put her hand upon his arm and felt it tremble with the Shadow Wizard's fury.

  "Let him be," she whispered. "Remember our contract."

  Fung walked to Grubbitt and cleared his throat. Shade motioned his shadows away so Fung could speak to his fellow.

  "Why, Grubbitt? Why so much hate?"

  "Why not?" Grubbitt hissed. "The power, the satisfaction, the reaching for more. Intelligence conquering the witless." He looked up at Fung. "Didn't you ever want more than dancing under a harvest moon?"

  Fung shook his head. "No, never felt the urge. Why ever did you want to kidnap me?"

  Grubbitt shrugged. "Just thought your nose needed cutting. Nothing personal."

  "What I want to know," Shade drawled, "is why you didn't kill me and Sharamon when you had the chance?"

  "I…I…wanted to savor every moment of pain when I sliced bits off of you." Grubbitt sniffed. "Surely you of all people can understand that?"

  Shade blinked and stared at the opposite wall. "Actually, yeah; yeah I can."

  Sharamon shuddered at such necromantic talk. "Enough. Let's take him to Fung's clan; they can decide what to do with him."

  * * * *

  Several days later, Sharamon and Shade stood on the deck of the tall-masted ship Luna Moth as it departed the port city of Gladsome on the Isle of Faerie. The green sails overhead clapped and the silver ropes sang. Sailors from the Island of Music chanted the wind into their service and Sharamon couldn't help humming along.

  The wizards l
eaned against the rail, watching the shining towers and glistening walls of faerie fade into the mist.

  Sharamon smiled as she felt her grandmother's lute shift across her back.

  "Exiled to Goblin Land," Shade mused. He tapped the hilts of his recovered daggers. "Not a bad end for a budding necromancer."

  "You sound almost fond of the little monster who nearly cut us into bits."

  "I admire his ambition. I wanted to take him back with me to the Island of Horrors but their judges weren't too fond of the idea. I wonder how he would have done with proper mentors."

  Sharamon shrugged. "Some things are meant to remain mysteries." She breathed deeply of the sea air. "You know what I wonder?"

  "What?"

  Sharamon gave him a sidelong glance and brushed her hair from her eyes. "How did you know the Derry Slide? Is that a popular dance on the Island of Horrors?"

  Shade drew his black-painted lips from his sharpened teeth. She saw his black eyes twinkle from the shadows beneath his hood.

  "Like you said, Shar, some things are meant to remain mysteries."

  They resumed watching the blues and purples of the sea as the first star broke from the evening sky. Sharamon whistled a lullaby and Shade hummed the Derry Slide as his shadows bowed and curtsied across the sleepy waves.

  Summer Flu

  by Katharina Schuschke

  I always look for something short and funny for the end of the anthology, and this story also has an original approach to the 'princess and dragon' theme. I guess you could call this volume of Sword & Sorceress a princess-and-dragon sandwich.

  This is Katharina's first sale. She says that she's been reading Sword & Sorceress since the first volume—which is a good way to sell to it, because that tells you the kind of stories we buy. She's 45 years old, studied computer sciences, and has been working in tech support, administration and as a computer consultant since. She loves her work, since most of the time it's less about computers (which she finds highly entertaining in their own way) and more about people and herding the different departments towards a common goal. No pets apart from the spiders which choose to share the house each autumn.