Also by Elisabeth Waters

  Darkover Anthology

  Music of Darkover

  Stars of Darkover

  Ski the Hellers

  Fate

  Changing Fate

  Mending Fate

  Sword and Sorceress

  Sword and Sorceress 27

  Sword and Sorceress 28

  Sword and Sorceress 29

  Sword and Sorceress 30

  Sword and Sorceress 31

  Sword and Sorceress 32

  Sword and Sorceress 33

  Sword and Sorceress 34

  Standalone

  The Princess, the Dragon, and the Frog Prince

  A Rhumba of Rattlesnakes

  Magic in Suburbia

  Watch for more at Elisabeth Waters’s site.

  Sword and Sorceress 29

  Edited by

  Elisabeth Waters

  The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  PO Box 193473

  San Francisco, CA 94119

  www.mzbworks.com

  Contents

  Sword and Sorceress 29

  Contents

  Introduction

  by Elisabeth Waters

  The Poisoned Crown

  by Deborah J. Ross

  Heartless

  by Steve Chapman

  Witch of Stones

  by Rebecca G. Eaker

  Chosen Ones

  by Amy Griswold

  Warmonger

  by Robin Wayne Bailey

  Gift Horses

  by Samantha Rich

  Plausible Deniability

  by Cat & Bari Greenberg

  The Stormwitch's Daughter

  by Dave Smeds

  Shining Silver, Hidden Gold

  by Catherine Soto

  Mendacity

  by Michael H. Payne

  Amma's Wishes

  by M.E. Garber

  Dead Hand of the Past

  by Jonathan Shipley

  Nut Rolls

  by Patricia B. Cirone

  With Thy Six Keys Enter

  by Julia H. West

  All Else

  by Pauline J. Alama

  Gods of the Elders

  by Jonathan Moeller

  Bronze Bras and More!

  by Melissa Mead

  About Sword and Sorceress

  Copyright

  Introduction

  by Elisabeth Waters

  Recently, each year when I write the introduction to the latest Sword & Sorceress, I wonder if Marion Zimmer Bradley actually started a new trend or was simply early in picking up on a change in the world. This year that feeling is particularly strong. I believe that Disney’s best-selling movies are a fairly good guide to the social norms of their time, and seeing Maleficent was a real eye-opener, especially as Sleeping Beauty was the first Disney movie I remember.

  When I was a little girl, “when you grow up and get married and have children” was all one word. In the environment I lived in, girls remained virgin until they married. “Until death do you part” in the marriage vows meant just that: your parents and your friends’ parents would be married to each other until one of them died. It was a sheltered world, a world in which you could believe—at least as a child—that life was like the Disney movies your parents took you to see. You would grow up, find your true love, marry him, and live happily ever after (without the singing animals to do your housework, of course—too bad, we could really use those).

  Slowly, however, even Disney’s view of true love has become more realistic. In 1991 Beauty and the Beast featured a heroine who cared more about books than most of the people around her, and while she married the Beast in the end, at least she got to know him first—none of the idiocy of “love at first sight.” Ann Sharp and I saw the movie together, and we both had the same reaction: “Forget the handsome prince; we’ll take the library!”

  By 2007 things had really changed. In Enchanted Giselle starts as a stereotypical 1950’s Disney heroine, complete with small woodland creatures helping her to dress, before she is magically sent to real-world New York. The prince follows her, but “true love’s kiss” is a running joke through most of the movie, until it is needed to save her. It’s at that point that they discover that the prince is not her true love. She has changed, and so has he. And no earlier Disney movie had any dialogue like Queen Narissa’s comment to the (male) lawyer clutched in her draconic claws, right after Giselle stuck a sword in her: “It’s the brave little princess coming to the rescue. I guess that makes you the damsel in distress, huh, handsome?”

  Last year’s Frozen and this year’s Maleficent, however, really challenge the myth of “true love’s kiss.” In Frozen the handsome prince is only pretending to love Princess Anna; when his help is really needed, he attempts to kill both her and her sister. It is the sisters’ love for each other that saves them both. And Maleficent’s curse can be broken by true love’s kiss only because she believes that there is no such thing. She’s wrong; true love does exist—it’s just not always where you expect to find it.

  Next year Disney is redoing Cinderella, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what they’re going to do to it now, sixty-five years after their previous version.

  I think that all of us want to live our version of happily every after. True love, however, is not the only thing in life—or, in our case, in fiction. There’s also magic, adventure, and humor. Every year we get more stories demonstrating that. I hope that you will enjoy this year’s crop.

  The Poisoned Crown

  by Deborah J. Ross

  Speaking of Enchanted, here’s a very different story of a step-mother unwilling to pass the crown to the rightful heir. At least she doesn’t send him to New York.

  Deborah J. Ross writes and edits fantasy and science fiction. Her most recent books include the Darkover novel, The Children of Kings (with Marion Zimmer Bradley); Lambda Literary Award Finalist Collaborators, an occupation-and-resistance story with a gender-fluid alien race (as Deborah Wheeler); and The Seven-Petaled Shield, an epic fantasy trilogy. Her short fiction has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Star Wars: Tales From Jabba's Palace, Realms of Fantasy, previous volumes of Sword & Sorceress, and various other anthologies and magazines. Her editorial credits include Lace and Blade (2 volumes), Stars of Darkover, and Gifts of Darkover (June 2015). When she’s not writing, she knits for charity, plays classical piano, studies yoga, and rehabilitates service dogs.

  Spring came late to Errinjar, capital of the kingdom bearing the same name, and for days on end, storm clouds obscured the sun. Damp penetrated the wooden walls of the poorer districts, in which was situated an inn often frequented by soldiers too old or crippled to work. In one of the few private chambers, a meager fire subsided into a heap of ashes. A woman of middle years but with a soldier’s strong build sat before the hearth, carefully facing the door, wrapped in a palace guard’s cloak. At the sound of footsteps outside, she reached for the sword that lay, still sheathed, at her feet.

  “Venise, it’s me. May I come in?”

  “You need not ask.”

  The latch lifted and Jessyr, Prince of Errinjar, entered. Venise relaxed against the back of the chair, for Jessyr was the one of the few people in the city against whom she need not be on guard. She had held him when he was but a few hours old, taken up from the body of the mother who died birthing him. The king had met her gaze, each of them astonished at seeing his newborn and only son. The memory still had the power to melt her heart.

  When Venise moved to rise, Jessyr protested, “Please, do not overtax yourself on my account. I recently learned how ill you’ve been.” Nevertheless, Venise got to her feet. “Please,” he said again.

  Venise sensed the distress behind that single word. “Tell me,” she said, managing a smile as she sat down.

  He responded with an engaging smile. “You were the most loyal of my father’s guards...” His voice broke, and Venise imagined him thinking, I miss him so much!

  He doesn’t know. He must never know.

  “I needed to see for myself how you fared,” he said. “I would have visited earlier, had I known where you were. I thought you might have returned home—Garranja Province?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve been here.”

  On the day Jessyr’s stepmother, the dowager-consort, had been declared regent, Venise had resigned from the palace guards. Princess Emilianara of Caratha could not by law and custom be crowned queen, but that did not prevent her from putting her own people into positions of power and forcing out everyone else.

  I should have done more than resign. In the throes of the lung fever, Venise had almost come to plunging a dagger through her own heart—the same dagger the king had given her on the night they first lay in each other’s arms. She had taken it out, run her fingers along the length of steel, and felt for the space between her ribs. In the end, she had trusted the fever to do its work. It had failed her.

  “What brings you to my door, Your Highness?”

  “Jess. Call me Jess, as you used to do.”

  Venise capitulated. “Well
then, Jess. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve come to ask a favor.”

  With one hand, Venise indicated the poor quality of the room, silently questioning what she could offer him.

  He lowered himself to the edge of the pallet bed. “You served my father—as advisor as well as palace guard. I want you to do the same for me.”

  So like his father, coming straight to the point. Venise restrained a sigh. I’ve got to stop thinking like that. Brinnar is gone and I must live what remains of my life without him.

  “As you see, I’m hardly fit for duty,” she pointed out.

  “Not my physical protection. At least, I hope it won’t come to that.” He shifted on the wooden frame. “I need people I can trust, people with experience and wisdom—now, rather than waiting for my coronation.”

  Venise nodded, thinking how many others would care only for the pomp and luxury of the throne and not the responsibilities it carried.

  “The thing is—” and here, Jessyr leaned forward, elbows on his knees, “—I’m not entirely sure the coronation is actually going to take place. Every time I ask about preparations, my stepmother puts me off. Says not to trouble myself about it. Or gets irate that I’m questioning her competence as regent.”

  Venise thought that if Emilianara was fobbing the heir to the throne off with arguments like that, she deserved to have her competence questioned. “So you’re determined to prepare yourself as best you can.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “As best as we can.”

  A feeling stirred inside Venise, one she’d thought was gone forever. Brinnar had had a gift for bringing people together, even those who had been his adversaries. Her answer was already decided.

  “You will, of course, be given quarters in the palace,” Jess said.

  “I will, of course, decline the offer.” At his questioning look, she explained, “If you do need a bodyguard, I’ll bed down in the outer chamber of your quarters—” or across your threshold, as Brinnar used to joke, “but as that is not yet the case, it’s best that I am free to come and go, and observe.”

  “You probably won’t want to wear your old uniform then, even with a badge of my personal service?”

  She would need a reason to be in the palace without having to explain her position to every cadet she encountered in the hallways. “I’ll take the badge,” she said, “and have a word with the captain.”

  “Done, although the old captain retired just after you did.” Jessyr named the replacement, a man Venise didn’t know well but thought reasonably competent.

  After Jessyr took his leave, Venise gazed into the glow of the embers for a long time.

  That same day, Venise resumed her sword practice and began walking in the city. Her body needed the exercise to recover strength after her illness, but more than that, she needed to reacquaint herself with the world beyond her chamber. Last night’s storm had passed, leaving the day fresh and mild. Despite the new paint on the shops and the ribbons in the manes of the ladies' horses, Venise noticed an unease in the streets. It was not unusual for country folk to make their way to Errinjar during the winter months, but too many of these people looked like foreigners—Zalloans, by their complexions. Venise had learned soldiering in the border skirmishes there, until Brinnar’s treaty brought peace.

  The closer Venise got to the palace, the more angry mutterings she heard. At the head of a rough procession marched a man in formal robes, some kind of clerk. There was a ruckus at the front gate, where the clerk was questioned by the palace guards before being admitted. Most of the crowd dispersed, leaving only a scattering of men. Venise walked up to one of them, a thin, haggard older fellow. On the side of his neck, she recognized the tattoo of a Zalloan adult, a man of standing.

  “Grandfather,” she asked politely in the Zall tongue, a bit awkwardly because she had not spoken it in so many years, “can you tell me what's going on?”

  The old man’s expression softened, but not the hollows around his eyes. “We want only what was promised us, aid in times of hunger.”

  Brinnar had hoped to stabilize relations between the two kingdoms by promising food during the harsh Zalloan winters. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why was the treaty not honored?”

  The man glanced toward the palace gate. “We took up a collection, more than we could afford, and hired a scribe to write our words down. A petition, he called it.”

  Petitioning the dowager-regent to fulfill her late husband’s promises? It made no sense that Emilianara would refuse to help Zalloa, for her own people, the Carathans, were closely related, even in the design of their tattoos. Venise recalled the Zalloan expression of wishes for health and peace, and they went their separate ways.

  ~o0o~

  The next day, Venise presented herself to the same palace gate she’d used while on active guard duty. She wore her best clothing, and that was none too good, the leather jacket and pants being scuffed with wear, but her sword was impeccably clean and sharp. One of the guards, the son of her old captain, recognized her and would have admitted her even without Jessyr’s badge. The other man was new.

  “You thinkin’ to rejoin?”the unfamiliar guard asked.

  Venise shook her head. “I’m here on special assignment, nothing more. I’m done with the old life.”

  Taking her leave, Venise hurried along the familiar back stairs to the wing of the palace housing the royal quarters. Jessyr had kept his old suite, down a wide hallway from the spacious quarters once occupied by his father.

  Dismissing his attendants, Jessyr led the way into the inner sitting room. “Any trouble? Would you like a drink? Or is it proper to offer you one?”

  “No, no, and of course, it is not. I’m on duty, even if I’m not in uniform.”

  “Please sit down, anyway. You’ve been out on the streets, I suppose. And heard about the petition yesterday?”

  Venise nodded, but remained standing.

  “My stepmother’s in a fury, at least that’s the palace gossip. I heard it from my valet. She’s not talking to me about it. Or wasn’t. I hope this evening’s dinner will mark a change. She’s been hinting she’s willing to go forward with coronation plans, or at very least include me in discussions of matters of state.”

  A short time later, Venise found herself standing a half-pace behind Jessyr’s left shoulder in the royal dining hall and trying not to remember how Brinnar preferred simple meals in his own quarters. The table was sumptuously set for twelve, and the hall bustled with servants and personal attendants.

  Venise didn’t know most of the dinner guests, except for a general who had been past retirement age when she had left soldiering for the palace guards. She’d heard about the priestess and also the two brothers from important trading families, but had never seen them in person before. She noticed who looked and spoke directly to Jessyr and in what manner, who deferred to Emilianara, and who maintained his own position.

  They’re all her puppets, or soon will be. The realization made Venise sad that Brinnar had married such a creature. That marriage, like everything else he’d done, had been for Errinjar’s sake, for the secure border that an alliance with a Carathan princess brought. Well, almost everything he did.

  Venise noticed, too, the deftness with which Jessyr maneuvered the conversation to the topic of his having achieved his majority, the age at which he was entitled to take the throne, all the while partaking only of those foods his stepmother had first eaten.

  “Well, my dear,” Emilianara said to Jessyr in the pause before the dessert wine, “you must be impatient to take up your new duties.”

  Venise saw the shift in Jessyr’s posture. He was thinking that at last his stepmother was going to agree to the coronation.

  “Of course, you must ascend to your father’s throne at the proper time,” Emilianara continued, gesturing with her wine glass. The fine crystal caught the light from the banks of candles. The wine was red and very dark. “The people expect no less. The gods expect no less.”