Swords & Dark Magic (14 page)

They’ll know! They’ll know it’s not me!

“—not as effective as the old weapon, of course, but they don’t make anything like they used to. And no one will go looking for Andhrakar, since everyone knows where it is. There will be no advertising for your new resting place. You will wither and die in the dark and you will eat no more human souls.”

I am immortal.

“You say so, but I never believed it. You eat things; I think you’ll starve to death if you never eat again. Anyway, we’ll try the experiment. I’ll stop by in a few hundred years to see how you’re doing.”

He threw the accursed spear-blade imprisoning the demon Andhrakar into the pit under an outhouse. Then he shoveled a hundredweight of soil atop it.

At last, he wanted a drink rather badly. He broke into the Broken Fist and availed himself of Leen’s left-behind stock. At least, he poured himself a cup of wine and stood at the bar, preparing to drink it. He stood there for a moment, watching his distorted reflection in the smooth, dark surface of the wine.

When people returned to the town, they found the inscription on the anvil, and the fragments of the spearhead, and they reacted much as Morlock had anticipated. They also found the broken door of the Broken Fist, and they saw the wine cup, full to the brim, standing untouched on the bar. But they did not see Morlock, then or ever again.

C. J. CHERRYH began writing stories at the age of ten, when she became frustrated with the cancellation of her favorite TV show,
Flash Gordon
. She has a Master of Arts degree in classics from Johns Hopkins University, where she was a Woodrow Wilson fellow, and taught Latin, Ancient Greek, the classics, and ancient history in Oklahoma. Cherryh wrote novels in her spare time when not teaching, and in 1975 sold her first novels
Gate of Ivrel
and
Brothers of Earth
to Donald A. Wollheim at DAW Books. The books won her immediate recognition and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1977. In 1979, her short story “Cassandra” won the Best Short Story Hugo, and she quit teaching to write full-time. She has since won the Hugo Award for Best Novel twice, first for
Down-below Station
in 1982 and then again for
Cyteen
in 1989. In addition to developing her own fictional universes, Cherryh has contributed to several shared world anthologies, including
Thieves’ World, Heroes in Hell,
and the Merovingen Nights series, which she edited. Her most recent novels are major new Alliance novel,
Regenesis,
and new Foreigner novel,
Conspirator
. She lives near Spokane, Washington, and enjoys skating and traveling. She regularly makes appearances at science fiction conventions.

A WIZARD IN WISCEZAN

C. J. Cherryh

It was an old city up an old river, Wiscezan-on-Eld.

The sea had used to be closer.

The trade had used to be more profitable.

The city had sold its timber off the heights, and the streams had poured silt down to the wharves where the big boats loaded. The silt had made little shallows, and then little channels, and then a bog around the edges. That let in the smallest enemies: buzzing swarms in summer that brought fever and unhealth.

The timber was gone. The soft hills grew lower by the year, the silt grew deeper, the bog thicker and now overgrown with substantial trees, and the little trading outpost southward on the coast, on the little Yliz River, Korianth, built wharves to take the trade. They dealt in dried fish, in carpets and dyed goods, in hammered bronze and leather, amulets, wines, and grain and beer from the sunny east.

Korianth prospered. It got itself a king, and ruled up and down the coast. It traded that king for a better one and lately thrived.

Wiscezan still, stubborn in its ways, traded a few cypress logs down its river and down the coast. It traded pottery, and furs, and building stone from the hard heart of the hills, but it was no longer what it had been.

Its last duchess of the old blood died. The last nobles lived in fair luxury, still. But Korianth under King Osric was too occupied with its own difficulties, its troublesome gods and ambitious allies, to trouble itself when Jindus ait Auzem moved in, bringing his mercenaries with him.

Jindus married a third cousin of the last duchess, a vain and silly, though noble, girl, who within three months died of a dish of mushrooms—leaving Jindus widowed and ennobled, so far as inheritance went.

Wiscezan therefore had a new duke, one with ambitions far exceeding Wiscezan’s humbled circumstances. He collected taxes. He hired mercenaries, he hired a wizard of dark reputation, and he married several more wives, soon deceased, their noble names linking Jindus deeper and deeper into the ancient lineages of the Eld.

Were the nobles of Wiscezan alarmed? That they were. Even the related houses off in Korianth were alarmed at the state of affairs and appealed to King Osric to do something. But in a very little time Duke Jindus had become a potent threat beyond this fever-ridden city. Nobles in several cities prayed the right mosquito would find the duke…and a few tried, with small spells, to assure that happened.

But the spells went amiss. Grievously amiss. Not many knew it.

But old Cazimir did.

And took himself and his few students deeper into the alleyways and shadows of Wiscezan.

He was not what he had been, was Cazimir Eisal.

He had been a great teacher when the duchess was alive. He had had his academy and students who came even from Korianth and distant ports to study under his guidance. He had had a library and a fine house and apprentices to do the grinding of herbs and the jotting-down of his great thoughts, so that Cazimir the Wise had very little to do but teach the most advanced of his students, who taught the rest.

But on the waft of a night wind and a stray curtain and the aged duchess’s bare shoulder, fever had arrived…and not all Cazimir’s wizardry had cured it.

He had suspected then, had Cazimir, that there was another Agency at work.

He had seen that Agency when Jindus hired it…seen that Agency for a lean and hungry man standing always near the war-lord, and he had said to himself it was not Jindus they had to fear.

But the duchess had already died, and the power had come into the heart of the new authority in Wiscezan, and Cazimir had had a grave, cold feeling that nothing now would go well for the city, or for him. The times had turned, and new omens were in the ascendant.

Accordingly, Cazimir left his house and took up residence in the lower town. His well-born disciples and apprentices, having a place to go, went to their well-born relatives, or set up shop in other places, scattered about the coast.

He still taught. He protected the Talented, the few he could find.

But age was on him, and his fortunes declined.

Oh, Miphrynes—that being the name of the Agency behind the duke—was sure Cazimir was still out there, but Miphrynes knew the nature of white wizards, that taking them on could provoke unexpected backlashes of magic, and so long as Cazimir stuck to the lower town, and until Miphrynes could get a wedge inside his defenses—well, Miphrynes found it convenient to sit in the ducal palace, enjoying the luxury in the confidence that a black wizard’s citadel was no easier to crack.

And his was a great deal more comfortable.

Take students? Not Miphrynes. He held power. He didn’t share it.

He got power. He obtained it from the depths of hell.

And hell was what was seeping out of Jindus’s palace these days, quiet as yet, and very subtle, but it knew what it wanted. It had failed in Korianth. Now it had a new foothold.

Master had not been well the last week. Master had not made a charm in a month…which left the students to do the spellcraft, and to sell it in the form of bits of paper, easy to carry, that did useful things.

Healing was beyond them. But papers that could light a fire, or chill water, those they had.

And Willem Asusse was in a position. He was the senior of the three of them, but almost as useless as ten-year-old Jezzy, who could only bespell cats, and then only when the cat was in a receptive mood. It was Almore who could light fires and Almore who could freeze water or boil it. So it was Almore’s charms, except one bit of paper, which offered to attract a mouser at least to some loyalty, if fed.

And it was Willem’s job to sell them around and about the Alley, which was
his
Talent.

Well, more, his talent was illusion, like Master’s, and he did one very important job, helping Master keep the Alley secret and shut off from the rest of Wiscezan.

But he couldn’t so much as light a candle, not like Almore, so it was Almore who kept them fed in Master’s little lapses, and it was Willem’s art of illusion and flummery that convinced householders they were not scared to buy from him.

It had gotten him, thus far today, a loaf of stale bread, which he had broken in half and tucked under his jerkin. It was no small trophy, good, dark bread that had a lot of substance, even if it was burned half-black and full of hollow bubbles—young goodwife Melenne was not the best cook, but she was scatter-witted and a good customer for the fire-starting spells.

And the tavern was a safe bet. The freezing-charm improved its beer to drinkability.

It was an old contact. A safe one. They took a risk taking on any new customer these days: they daren’t advertise. But the tavern relied on them, and the tavern had a back side well planted in Wink Alley.

It was a mazy sort of confusing place to begin with, the Alley: if you didn’t know to take the slit of a passage at Blind Gaijer the Smith’s house, and then to take the next branch to the left, you were going to wander a bit, and you could end up right over in the netherside of Beggars’ Row, where the beggars didn’t like you to be.

So even without a little illusion, the Alley was a maze, and dangerous. It had a few inhabitants, merchants semi-associated with the wizard, who were its outward face, a potter, and a couple of enterprising pickpockets that never worked inside the Alley. And with the illusions—you didn’t see the other doors. You just thought the Merry Ox was the way out, and it was, and that was that. You never saw the other back doors, just that one…no matter where you wandered in Wink Alley.

But illusions were beginning to weaken—Master’s, and his; and though he’d used to go outside the Alley now and again to peddle his wares, he stuck close these days.

Possibly Master’s intent was weakening. Possibly Master could grow more forgetful, and a stray apprentice could end up on the streetside—forever, or at least until Master missed him. Master’s hovel, unlike the commercial establishments, had no streetside door.

At any event, Willem was anxious to be home, and there was no trouble, despite the other confusion in the Alley, in his finding the Merry Ox. Getting the best deal from the innkeep—it was well not to sell him too many spells at a time, lest he get the notion they were easy-made. And it was a good hour for bargaining, the lull in the afternoon, between noon and the siesta hour.

So, turning around three times, and blinking twice, which was guaranteed to find the Merry Ox, Willem skipped up the back steps, went down the unlighted little hall to the dim bar where Wiggy Brewer ran his business. The place smelled of pork pie, of spilled beer, mildew—and Wiggy, whose contribution was sweat and garlic. There was no spell to mask Wiggy, who sold baths but never took one.

It wasn’t Willem’s favorite stop. Goodwife Melenne was that. But he could deal with Wiggy’s daughter, who generally knew what the price ought to be, and was going to be, so it was usually short, sensible dealing and straightforward, Wiggy’s daughter having no designs on him at all—there
was
a use for illusion in his trade.

But Wiggy’s daughter—her name was Hersey—came flying toward him. “Willem!” said she. “Willem!” grabbing the front of his jerkin, leaning across the bar with a huge expanse of bosom flowing into his view. “There’s trouble here. There’s the duke’s men on the prowl. Go! We c’n talk in th’ alley!”

Willem needed no second hint. He broke free and headed right back down the dark back hallway, with Wiggy’s ample daughter right behind him.

The Alley was safe, untenanted except by old jars and trash bins. Willem caught his breath there in the uncertain pale light, on the gritty back step of the Merry Ox, and, drawing a breath, swung around to ask Wiggy’s daughter what she had seen—

—When a large man in leather armor and a steel helmet came out of that dark hall, knocking Hersey right off the step and into Willem’s arms. Willem staggered backward, steadied the girl on her step, and, still holding on to her, heard a thunderous charge toward the door, from out of that dim hall.

Black-caps. The duke’s men, with swords drawn, and meaning business…but not aimed at them. Willem cast a fast one:
I’m not here, she’s not here.
And then because he didn’t want trouble in the Alley, he threw another one after it:
Nobody’s here.

The guards stopped. Looked around them. Looked at the steps, and the doorway where Willem stood with Hersey, balanced on the edge of the steps. The spell was shredding. Willem held it up, and carefully stepped down to the cobbles of the Alley, keeping the illusion around him, moving slowly—you could break an illusion if you moved too fast, or let fear get into it.

He kept moving. He saw the guards look confused, and then charge back up the steps past Hersey, who delayed a moment, looking just as confused.

Then came the sounds of Wiggy’s bull voice from inside, and furniture being shoved about, and Hersey whirled around and ran back inside in a hurry.

“Here, you!” Wiggy was shouting, and “Where is he?” a foreign voice yelled…

…reminding Willem he wasn’t alone in the Alley. He
hadn’t
seen the fugitive, who had dived for cover somewhere.

I’m not here,
he sent out, and turned around and found himself facing a leather-armored chest and a drawn sword and the fugitive looking straight at him.