Sword and Sorceress 33

  edited by

  Elisabeth Waters & Deborah J. Ross

  The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  PO Box 193473

  San Francisco, CA 94119

  www.mzbworks.com

  Contents

  Sword and Sorceress 33

  Contents

  Introduction

  by Deborah J. Ross

  Wrestling the Ocean

  by Pauline J. Alama

  Haunted Book Nook

  by Margaret L. Carter

  The Hood and the Wood

  by Lorie Calkins

  Singing to Stone

  by Catherine Mintz

  The River Lady's Pale Hands

  by M P Ericson

  Lin’s Hoard

  by Deirdre M. Murphy

  The Citadel in the Ice

  by Dave Smeds

  All in a Name

  by Jessie D. Eaker

  Death Everlasting

  by Jonathan Shipley

  Balancing Act

  by Marella Sands

  First Act of Saint Bastard

  by T. R. North

  The Fallen Man

  by Deborah J. Ross

  A Familiar's Predicament

  by Jane Lindskold

  The Secret Army

  by Jennifer Linnaea

  Coming Home to Roost

  by L. S. Patton

  From the Mouths of Serpents

  by Evey Brett

  Magic Words

  by Alisa Cohen

  Charming

  by Melissa Mead

  About the Editors

  About Sword and Sorceress

  Copyright

  Introduction

  by Deborah J. Ross

  My very first professional fiction sale was to Marion Zimmer Bradley for the debut volume of Sword and Sorceress, so I’m honored to now be entrusted with carrying forward what has become an iconic series. Marion looked for stories that featured strong women characters with talents in both physical and magical arts. She wanted true alternatives to what was jokingly referred to at the time as “Conan in drag,” stories in which women acted like male action heroes (and wore improbable and uncomfortable brass bikinis). This was the early 1980s, a time when other writers, notably women, incorporated in their work a new definition of a female hero, one who prevailed through intelligence, cooperation, or compassion, rather than brute force. Marion also felt strongly that her anthology series should welcome all submissions, including from writers who had never before sold a story to a professional market. Under her editorial guidance, the Sword and Sorceress series established a reputation for discovering and encouraging new talent. This current volume continues that tradition, nurturing the next generation of fantasy writers while giving scope to those with admirable publishing credits. Some of the authors whose work graces these pages made their literary debuts in previous volumes, others have already established literary careers elsewhere, and some make their first appearances here.

  Marion had a gift for seeing into the heart of a story and choosing stories that spoke to her; her stylistic choices resulted in a distinctive reading experience regardless of the individual makeup of any particular volume. That, too, continues today. Over the decades, the breadth of stories has grown, yet the series has been remarkably consistent. Readers know that when they picked up a copy of any volume of Sword and Sorceress, they will find tales of fantasy featuring strong female characters, with some version of either martial skill or magic. Not all the protagonists will be human, and sometimes the magic will take highly original forms, but the emotional satisfaction in each story and in the anthology as a whole, remains true to the original vision.

  This is the second anthology I’ve edited with Elisabeth Waters, and by far the most light-hearted. It includes a good measure of humorous twists on well-known folk and fairy tales, puns and other forms of word play, and playfulness. Every anthology I’ve ever edited, whether by open submission or invitation only, broad in topic or narrowly defined, has developed its own internal structure. By this I mean the way the stories weave themselves into a whole that is greater than the individual parts: a journey, if you will, through a unified landscape that is the product of many distinct visions. Humor plays an essential role, giving us a chance to catch our literary breaths after a journey through the darkness and take a moment to smile.

  In the mysterious way anthologies coalesce, stories will often elaborate in unique ways on the same theme. My editorial debut, Lace and Blade, included two very different stories about Spanish highwaymen (in the second one, two stories featured Chinese generals). I have yet to figure out if this coincidence is pure chance or the simultaneous emergence of story elements in various creative minds. Perhaps certain themes arise from the temper of the times, or simply because we are all so heartily tired of sparkly vampires (for example), we long for something that, if not exactly new, is fresh and meaningful.

  In this volume, you’ll find more than one tale with dragons or bodies of water (oceans, rivers) or books. I’m always tickled when I find a librarian saving the day, or any character—human or not—who adores books as much as I do. I will concede that libraries are a bit cumbersome for vagabond sorceresses to cart around, and look forward to the magical version of an e-reader as a repository of arcane information. As for dragons, we’ve come a long way from the demonic incarnations of evil as portrayed in medieval Western Europe to include their benign or even sagacious non-Western cousins, and now dragons speak for themselves about their own, often humorous concerns. Still, the stereotypical physical form of a dragon with its ability to fly and to breathe fire is awe-inspiring and therefore attractive to writers of fantastical adventures. As for water, as a primal element, it begs for a central role, everything from ocean storms to sea gods and monsters. And as usual, the authors included here showcase the richness of interpretation of all of these themes.

  Wrestling the Ocean

  by Pauline J. Alama

  From the beginning, Sword and Sorceress has featured stories of the friendships—both likely and highly improbable—between swordswomen and wielders of magic. While the same is sometimes true for their male counterparts, this type of story emphasizes how women can work cooperatively and in a complementary fashion, each providing her own particular strength with a rotation of leadership.

  Pauline J. Alama doesn't exclusively write stories about the ocean, but no reader of her novel The Eye of Night (Bantam Spectra 2002) will be surprised to find her returning to the theme. Her heroic duo of damsels-errant, warrior Ursula and enchantress Isabeau, have appeared in four other volumes of Sword and Sorceress. The events of “Wrestling the Ocean” occur between “Unicorn Heart” (Sword and Sorceress 31) and “Women’s Work” (Sword and Sorceress 32). Pauline’s work has also been published in Abyss & Apex, Fantasy Scroll Magazine, and numerous anthologies.

  “Marvelous! Why didn’t anyone tell me it would be so wonderful?” My friend Ursula, known to heralds as the Maiden of Révie or the Knight of the Unicorn, stood knee-deep in sea water, her hair wind-blown, her eyes alight. “Surely one of the troubadours we met in our travels had seen the ocean. Why ever didn’t they sing about it?”

  “Because they thought they had more to gain by singing of you, O peerless Maiden of Révie,” I said wryly. “But it is a marvel. I never imagined the sea could feel so different from the river around the Isle of Sorcery. It seems so vast, so ancient.”

  “Ancient? I’d say young, like a colt not yet tamed to the bit. Wild and unharnessed and glorious.” She drank in a deep breath of briny air.

  I was glad none of those flattering minstrels could see Ursula now; they’d have been insufferable. For a daughter of the hill-country, she looked oddly native here, akin to the shimmering seascape, her flyaway hair the color of wet sand, her eyes the stormy green-blue of the waves. She’d left her armor piled on a rock high above the tide-line, weighing down the outer garments and stockings we’d shed so we could wade in our linen shifts. For a brawny, broad-shouldered maiden, she seemed unexpectedly light thus stripped to her essence, as if she’d been unmasked as a sea-bird. No more chilled than a seal, she danced through the spume. “Don’t you love it, Isabeau?”

  I approached the sea more circumspectly, holding handfuls of linen above the water that swished about my ankles. “I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “It’s so—” I found myself, for once, at a loss for words. “So alien,” I finished, though the word did not do it justice. I reached down one finger to the wave, then tasted the brine it left on my skin. “It’s full of formidable magic.”

  “And what can you make of that, Isabeau?”

  “Nothing yet. Most of my enchantments are rooted in earth; this is strange to me. I’ll have to learn.”

  “Here, look!” Ursula fished up a handful of emerald-green stuff as sheer as the finest veil. “Herbs of the sea. Can you add that to your herbal?”

  I took the offered herb, felt its slick wetness, held it up to my eye. Clear as stained glass, it startled me with its simplicity: no stem, no root, no flower, no vein, yet it was complete in itself. “Indeed, it
will be short work to embroider its likeness.” This sea green could wind like a ribbon among the plants I’d already embroidered on my gown as I’d learned their natures and powers. I had some notion already what virtues this one carried: simplicity, resilience, clarity. And contradictions: like the ocean, it was new and fresh, yet impossibly ancient. Reluctantly I returned it to the water—it was crying out for water—and knelt in the cold surf, heedless of my sodden shift, to look more closely at the life that teemed there. “No one told me the ocean was a garden.”

  “Is it?” Ursula said. “Maybe it was the Garden of Eden, where life began. Imagine that, Isabeau! Adam and Eve washing ashore like driftwood, having suddenly discovered they couldn’t swim.”

  “You’ve been listening to too many troubadours and not enough preachers, Ursula,” I growled, but beneath it I was laughing, too, as if the live, moist air of the seashore put the laugh in my throat. Perhaps it did: anger arises from choler, a dry humor. Perhaps if I but stayed long enough in this air, I could learn joy.

  I waded toward Ursula and kicked brine at her. If she’d done it to me first, I’d have been angry, but Ursula took it as a game. I could see her preparing to kick a bigger splash of water at me—but a sudden wave stole her thunder, soaking us both to the neck. Above the roaring surf rang her laughter, louder than gulls’ screaming.

  Suddenly she broke off. “Hey, stop!”

  “Stop what?” I said. Then I saw what Ursula was heading toward: her shield floating seaward on a rapacious finger of tide. She launched herself at it and tackled the errant shield with a mighty splash. Rising triumphant, wet sand on her face, shield held aloft, she raged at the ocean: “What use would you have for my shield, tell me?”

  “Who are you scolding? The sea?”

  “Don’t laugh,” Ursula said, “but I think I saw a hand. A hand out of the sea.”

  “Really?” I had seen no such thing, but perhaps Ursula’s eyes were sharper than mine. Standing at her shoulder, I tried to follow her gaze, but saw only waves. At length I plucked something from Ursula’s hair.

  She started. “What was that?”

  I showed her what I’d captured: a clump of knobby brown weeds. “Let’s see what story these may tell me.”

  We returned to the higher ground where we’d left our clothes. With a firm grasp on my elbow, Ursula guided me over the rocks when I was too immersed in my find to watch my step. The brown seaweed was not at all as simple as the green one, that was certain. The knobs were hollow bladders of air, cunningly placed to keep the plant afloat. This buoyant little traveler, like its simpler green neighbor, lacked a root—like me, like Ursula, it roamed freely.

  “Come on, Isabeau,” Ursula said as she steered me to the patch of coarse beach grass where we’d left the horses browsing. “You can study that herb later. I want to go to the town and ask if anyone else has seen the hand in the waves. Besides, we need to find a place to spend the night. I’m not sleeping on the beach.”

  It was not hard to find the road to Muresca, the town that loomed above the beach like a beacon. Soon our horses’ hooves clattered on stone pavement and the air smelled less of brine than of peat fires and soup and human sweat.

  In a year of traveling with Ursula, I’d grown used to seeing bystanders gape at the spectacle of a maiden in full armor, sword at her hip, shield hanging from her saddle. But in this busy city street, no one stared at us. Instead, I stared at the varieties of humanity that passed on all sides: a blond northman with a braided beard; a lanky woman made taller by a basket balanced on her head; a seller of rich-colored silks who was so wrapped up in her wares that I could see no inch of her skin; a fisherman who hawked his catch wearing nothing but a band around his loins; a dyer whose hands and arms were purple to the elbow.

  We edged around a weather-beaten statue of a woman who seemed to be riding an enormous fish, holding a seashell in front of her. The crowd jammed so close to us that I could not properly examine this curious figure. It had been made with care and artistry once, displayed in the square for all to see, but now part of the fish tail had crumbled away, the seashell was cracked, and passers-by ignored the statue as if it were no more remarkable than the stones beneath their feet.

  In the press of bodies, I almost failed to notice a girl reaching for the purse at my belt. She’d have been disappointed indeed to find it full of leaves and dried blossoms, not coins, but I could not tolerate her grubby fingers on my herbs. I gave her the sort of paralyzing glare my grandmother deployed to keep her fractious progeny submissive. The urchin backed away, crossing herself as if she thought me a fiend.

  “Ursula, where in all this teeming ant-hill should we go?” I said.

  “We need lodging,” said Ursula, “and work to pay for it. And news to find the work to pay for the lodging. An inn will have all three.”

  I stared in bewilderment at the maze of stone streets as close-packed with people as a hive with bees. “But how in all this chaos do we find an inn?”

  “We follow him.” She pointed at a slender, russet-maned young man with a lute slung over his shoulder.

  “Ursula, seriously?”

  “Seriously, Isabeau. He’s not dressed fine enough to be heading to the castle, so he must be bound for an inn.”

  “And your taste for troubadours has nothing to do with it?” I grumbled, but I followed her anyway. What else could I do? She was right: the musician made straight for a beery-smelling stone house with a mermaid painted on the wall.

  Ursula opened the door and called in to the malty darkness, “Good day to you, master of the Mermaid. How much to lodge two travelers and stable two horses?”

  The innkeeper, a horse-faced man with thinning blond hair, quoted a price that left Ursula sputtering.

  “But that’s impossible! It would clean out our purse in a night.”

  “Can’t help it,” the innkeeper said. “Since my well’s gone brackish, I’ve had to pay to have water hauled from over the hill. Horses are thirsty beasts.”

  “Sorry about your well,” Ursula said, “but isn’t there some work we might do to earn our keep for a night or two? I’m strong as any man, and a deft hand with horses.”

  “With all the ships moored in the harbor that should have sailed long ago, I have my choice of strong backs and deft hands that have nowhere better to go. I’m sorry, lass,” the innkeeper said.

  “Come on, Isabeau. Maybe we’ll find a better welcome elsewhere.” Ursula mounted Fury and began riding away.

  I started after her, but kept looking back at the Mermaid Inn. Something nagged me. “I think I need to go back.” Without waiting to see if Ursula followed, I turned Cloudmane and rode back to the inn.

  The innkeeper was not pleased to see me again. “Don’t think I’ll drop my price for pretty words from a pretty face.”

  “I haven’t come to plead with you,” I said. “I am an enchantress from the Isle of Sorcery, and I may be able to purify your well.”

  “A likely tale,” the innkeeper scoffed. “And on that hope, you expect me to offer bed and board to you and your thirsty horses?”

  Arriving close behind me, Ursula chimed in, “That would seem fair.”

  But I said, “No. No exchange. A gift freely given—a parting gift if need be.” I turned to Ursula. “If I can purify water, it will have been a gift of the unicorn, not mine to sell.”

  She nodded silently. The unicorn had touched each of us with a horn of pure light. I can never describe how it changed me. With Ursula, I did not have to.

  The innkeeper was unmoved. “Right. You’ll do something to our well as you go—poison it, most likely—”

  A woman’s voice spoke from behind the innkeeper. “Oh, by all that’s holy! Ask her to purify a bucket of water first. If she can do that, it’s worth keeping her here—bodyguard, horses, and all.”

  “Very well, Loïsette.” The innkeeper beckoned me in. Ursula tethered the horses and followed me.

  The woman the innkeeper had called Loïsette—perhaps his wife, perhaps a sister, for they both had the same lank pale hair—hefted a wooden bucket with one muscular arm and set it before me. “Drawn from our own well this morning,” she said. “Scarcely good enough to scrub pots with.”