Magic in Ithkar Read online

  “Very good. As soon as my pavilion is ready, I will retire with my serving-woman. I wish not to be disturbed. However, inform me when the Mage Ioster has reached the fairground, and make ready to escort me to his tent.”

  It was not until the morning of the first day of the Fair at Ithkar that the Mage Ioster finally arrived, and the lateness of his coming hence was doubtless to be ascribed to the considerable distance that he must travel from his residence in the fastnesses of the remotest south. Nevertheless, the Lady Ais had endured without any noteworthy patience the interval between her arrival and his own. At her age, the relatively primitive accommodations of her pavilion were to be endured, not enjoyed. Moreover, a woman of her wealth and position likes very little to be kept waiting by anyone.

  One of her palanquin-bearers she had soundly whipped for a fancied impertinence, and she had scratched with cruelly sharp nails the soft breasts of her serving-woman for being a few minutes late with her bathwater.

  As might be imagined, Borkis was greatly relieved when the mage finally made his appearance on the scene. His employer was an imperious woman with a vindictive nature and a vicious temper, and he had not the slightest wish to incur her ire.

  So, when at length her agent informed her that Ioster had erected his tent, the lady wasted little time in securing a private interview. She was, in point of fact, his first customer at the fair.

  A lean man in narrow robes of black and purple, with thoughtful, hooded eyes, he greeted her at the door of his tent and assisted her from her palanquin. No less curious to observe her legendary beauty than had been the workmen, he found her veiled in silks so skillfully arranged as to conceal every inch of her form.

  Ushering her into his tent, he begged her to be seated and asked in what way he might serve her wishes.

  “It has come to my knowledge that you possess the Black Talisman of Zoromé,” she stated. Curious as to how the Lady Ais had procured this information, which was not common knowledge, yet not daring to ask, the mage gravely indicated that this was true.

  “In his epoch, Zoromé was a most distinguished practitioner of the sorcerous arts, in particular of goblinry. The talisman to which you refer entered my collection but recently, by a private transaction.”

  “Explain, if you will, the nature of goblinry, and the precise powers of the Black Talisman,” she ordered. “My agents have told me much concerning both subjects, but I wish to hear of these matters from your own lips.”

  “Zoromé was a famous master of elemental spirits,” said Ioster. “Goblins are earth-elementals and within the sphere of their powers fall such matters as the curing of impotence, the quickening of a barren womb, the restoration of health, the renewal of youth, physical beauty, the fertility of farm and field and orchard, the discovery of mineral treasures, and—”

  She silenced him with a lifted hand.

  “Enough! I have heard all that I need. I wish to purchase the talisman and full information as to its use.”

  “Alas, Great Lady, it pains me to inform you that by the nature of the transaction by which I acquired the Black Talisman, I am not permitted to sell it—”

  The Lady Ais interrupted by naming a price so unheard-of that it made Ioster blink. When he still politely, regretfully declined to let her purchase the talisman, she doubled the amount of her first offer.

  “Great Lady, it is not a problem of price but of the arrangements under which I came into the possession of the talisman. But there is no need for you to buy the talisman, for I will rent it to you for a night. Whatever the use to which you desire to put the talisman, the rites of goblinry are exceedingly simple and the operation will require no more than an hour, at most.”

  “I see,” said the lady in measured tones. “Is any danger involved in the use of the talisman?”

  “That is hard to say,” replied the mage thoughtfully. “The talisman is a fragment of dense obsidian, a form of volcanic glass like blackest crystal. Therein the wise Zoromé long ago imprisoned a goblin.”

  “Does the thing have a name?”

  He shook his head. “Such creatures have no names. To reply to your first question, there is not the slightest danger that the goblin can escape its glassy prison, for Zoromé sealed the creature and bound it with seven-and-seventy potent and powerful spells. But, like the earth itself from which they were formed, goblins are dull and obdurate, and this particular member of its race furiously resents its imprisonment and its impotence to gain its freedom. When you command the goblin to perform whatever act you desire of it, you must choose your words with care and phrase your orders beyond equivocation. They are by their nature malicious and tricksome, so be warned and wary.”

  The mage opened a small chest and withdrew several objects. These were a sheet of fresh parchment, an inkhorn and a new-cut quill, and one thing more. It was the last object that caught and held the fascinated gaze of the Lady Ais. For this was an irregular chunk of black glass wherein could be but dimly glimpsed a squat and grotesque minuscule form.

  “I will set down the instructions and the ritual itself, Great Lady, and rehearse you in them to make certain that you perform the rite without error,” he said.

  Returning at once to her pavilion, the Lady Ais commanded her serving-woman to leave and ordered that she was not to be disturbed for any cause and that two armed bearers were to stand guard over the entrance.

  Then she placed the piece of black glass on a low tabouret and fondled its slick, cold surface with greedy but hesitant fingers. The chill of the crystal gnawed at her bones, and within, the stooped, shadowy figure stirred a little as if sensing her nearness.

  She then lit three black candles and burned some pungent herbs in a small brass chafing-dish, stripping entirely naked. In her state of nudity it could easily have been seen, were any other present, that few remnants of her famous beauty remained. She was thin to the point of gauntness and her breasts, once released from the undergarment that lifted and supported them, dangled flat and wrinkled.

  Only in its classic bone structure and her enormous amethyst eyes did the face of Ais retain aught of its legended loveliness. Where it was not thickly painted with cosmetics, her skin could be seen as sallow and dry, and the ugly brown spots of age stained her bony, shriveled hands.

  Performing the ritual with care, she addressed the talisman.

  “Can you hear me?”

  A voice dull, harsh, and grating replied in slow and sluggish words.

  “I, can, hear, you.”

  “Can you see me?”

  “I, can, see. What, do, you, want, of, me.”

  “When I was young I was very beautiful, very graceful, very much admired and desired by men. So supple was I in the dance, possessing a fluid and boneless grace, that princes were entranced. So white was my skin that lords and barons swore the petals of white roses seemed sallow next to my flesh. At thirteen I became the mistress of a great baron. In the springtide of my youthfulness I was deemed the most desirable woman in the realm.”

  “Tell, me, what, you, want, of, me,” said the dull, deep voice.

  “I wish to be in the springtide of youth, my white body fairer than before, the supple grace of my movements even more graceful than they were when I was young.”

  “It, is, done,” said the goblin.

  A milky radiance filled the dark glass, and swirled from it to envelop the naked old woman. It tingled with a delicious warmth as it seeped into her flesh. She felt a momentary thrill as it sank into her very bones, and then . . .

  She uttered an involuntary cry, between a gasp and a moan as her body reshaped itself uncannily. And then she gave voice to a shrill shriek of pure panic, which the guards at the door could not help but hear. They looked at one another apprehensively.

  They had been commanded not to disturb their mistress on any account. But thieves and assassins were not unknown, even at the great fair. So the younger of the two men raised his voice.

  “My lady? Do you require assistance?�
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  There came no reply from within. Summoning up his courage, the guard parted the flap of the tent and peered within. He saw the usual appointments, but no intruder. The silken raiment his mistress had worn was draped across the back of a carven chair. But the Lady Ais herself did not seem to be in sight. There was nothing else strange to be seen but a dully glistening chunk of black crystal upon a tabouret.

  The burning candles and the parchment and the smoking herbs in the brass dish he did not even notice. For his gaze was fixed almost instantly upon the carpeted floor of the pavilion.

  There a slim white figure writhed with supple and boneless grace. It was small and slim, and whiter than fresh cream or even the petals of the white rose, and its eyes were amethystine. It was very beautiful.

  With a cry of revulsion and alarm, the young guard sprang into the tent and crushed the narrow, wedge-shaped skull of the young white serpent under his heel.

  In the gloom of its dark prison, the goblin smiled a slow, slow smile.

  To Take a Thief

  C. J. Cherryh

  Sphix meant a small sly animal; a thief and nuisance in fowlyards and brooderies. And Sphix meant Sphix himself, who was lean and long-eyed as his namesake, as hungry and as full of hubris when hunger drove him.

  But not straight to the target. To go any straight line, his master Khussan had taught him, was predictable; and to be predictable was to be dead (no matter that Khussan was lately dead himself, swinging from the gibbet far down on dockside, far from nobles’ tents and merrymakers and the festive business of the commons).

  Thus for mistakes. And ambitions.

  Sphix moved the way Khussan had taught him, all ease and smiles—handsomer than Khussan, coming up on manhood but not yet arrived. He had the long eyes of the east; the dark curling hair of the west; the swarthy complexion of the north—in fact, Sphix imagined all sorts of lineage for himself. His mother had no memory, she said, where she had come from, only of wandering the aisles of tables amid the color and the noise ’til old Melly took her in and taught her serving; and she had a thousand lovers (some lords) of every land in all the world.

  Mostly he remembered drunken louts and his mother dying the hard way, of one of Melly’s cures; but those were the bad days—his father was a lord: his mother told him so. Her last lover was Khussan, who beat her when he was drunk and made her laugh when he was not.

  But his true father was a lord: his true father was all of Ithkar Fair. Like the fair he was seasonal—starving most of the year and living in gray misery; going sleek and fine and gay-coated at fairtime—

  Wear good clothes, Khussan insisted. When a thing’s snatched, they look for poverty.

  And smile at the ladies (Khussan would) and look thoughtful at the tables (Khussan would ponder a thing oh so carefully, and something would fall off a table right into his pocket when he moved).

  Bones, by now, he was.

  Never go direct to the target. Move not arrowlike, but like the evolutions of the snake.

  Even if one’s belly ached with hunger.

  The temple hove up ahead, above the gay-striped canopies of the aisles. Here and there were real buildings. Here the crowds were lords and ladies, Ithkar folk in stiff, brocaded robes; foreigners in silk; veiled folk and the gossamer-dressed Khoi. There was a gradation of wealth within the aisles. It began with trinkets and gold-washed brass, proceeded to semiprecious stones, and worked its way to the rarest and most fabulous of goldsmithing and gem-carving, in shops that had all their displays safe inside, bars upon the windows and guards with quick eyes and no sense of humor at all. Such shops catered to the gentry. The sale of even one such fabled gem was a days-negotiated event, as much for the prestige of the purchaser as for the profit of the treasure merchant; and the object might be worn in the glittering society of the pavilions, the rites of temple, to the awe even of lords.

  Sphix knew these things. He was no beggar to keep his eyes on the mud; no common cutpurse to think only of the movements of his prey, and snatch and grab and swill down the meager take in some ale tent down by dockside, penniless by sunrise. Sphix was a thief, which, Khussan would say, was part magician, part entertainer, part lord.

  He did not, for instance, look about with nervousness. His moves were all-gracious, his stopping at a counter got a merchant’s hopeful glance, and gave him time to cast that backward look only another thief might know for the backtrail-watching it was.

  His clothes were not stolen; they were bought. And they were fine enough to walk the aisles in and smile at the ladies and gentlemen in. He knew to a nicety how far up those aisles they would take him. He kept a few small pebbles in his purse to make a convincing weight—nice, bright ones to be sure. (Why, sir, he would say were he ever apprehended and his purse turned out—mere luck-pieces! I tossed my last in a harper’s cap, I do forget where—should a man walk the fair with gold in his purse? There might be pickpockets and cutpurses, so I’ve heard. . . .)

  He weighed a bracelet, smiled at the old merchant, and put it back. He felt a jostle from the crowd and turned in indignation—no, not deft enough a move: he could not palm the brooch. He caught himself on the counter and gave it up: no second try at the same booth. The merchant had not followed the crowd motion, only him. The man was too alert. He smiled, chaffered a bit with the old man, got his face to relax—“My mother had such a brooch, all set in rubies it was, with the blessed Evin’s face—”

  “Garnets,” the old man said, running a gnarled finger around the rim. “Fine garnets. Mark the setting, set firm, here, rub it across your sleeve—see, not a snag. That’s my craftsmanship. Hold it to the light.”

  “Oh, it’s very fine. Very fine. I like this.” He felt dizzy, the brooch held thus against the sun, the light shining in his eyes with the white, white brilliancy of late summer. He felt his knees go weak, the penalties of hunger. He blinked, lowered his arm, handed the brooch back.

  “Young gentleman?”

  “I haven’t the funds just now—truly—” He locked left and right, scanning the crowd while his knees wobbled and his stomach felt as empty as his purse. He did not clutch the counter. “I’ll remember this booth; I’ll be back for it—could you save it for me?”

  “No, no, young gentleman, first come, it’s bought; a man has to— Are you well, lad?”

  “The sun—I think I’ve forgotten to eat.”

  He wandered off, steadier now. Hunger did that, came and went, along with the wobbles. But he knew a panic gnawing as famine.

  Khussan hanged. He had crept up later to the gibbet; and the sight haunted him, the twisted shape against the sun.

  His nerve was gone. Four days he had not scored, not the least trinket. He had felt the unsteadiness in his moves, known his every flaw. A dead man had taught him. The best that he knew was hanging in the sun, food for birds. Khussan had failed—all his laughter, all his studied good humor, all the skills and tricks had not saved him. Something he had done was wrong and Sphix did not know what it was.

  He did not know. And day by day, as the thought had been growing in him from the day Khussan died, he grew hungrier, and more driven, and (Khussan’s precepts advised him) more a danger to himself.

  Don’t steal hungry, Khussan would say.

  Don’t work sick; or mad; or cocky, either.

  It’s an art, lad.

  But those thoughts were dead. The birds were picking them from Khussan’s brain, through empty eyeholes.

  And day by day the hand that had faltered from fear grew unsteadier still with hunger.

  Fool, Sphix told himself with Khussan’s inner voice. Fool— walking up the aisle, remembering he should not be hurrying. (Where was he hurrying? to what? from what? He did not know.) Ahead were the too good shops, the too fine lords; the priests in black and glittering brocade, where even merchants wore robes fine enough for the jewels that they sold. His clothes were not good enough for this. He turned aside, bumped a shopper, and stammered a plea for pardon, walking on. The man
likely checked his purse after. Suspicion. All it took was a finger pointed, a cry raised, and they would take him like Khussan—

  Voices buzzed in his ears. The sun beat down on his head, making a red blaze behind his lids when he blinked. Sell his fine clothes, that he could do—there were the secondhand booths where he had gotten them; but such things always bought dear and sold at a pittance: the dealers knew the desperation of those who traded for their rags. A meal or two if he dealt sharp, a solitary meal; and after that, going in some worse garments, confined to a territory where thieves were more common and more guarded against, and the eyes of the merchants sharp indeed. Oh, Lords, he already had the wobbles, had already backed off from one gullible old man—

  No. No. No.

  Think calm, lad, Khussan would say.

  Go at it calm. Laugh. Laugh gentle. Feel it. Be it. A true thief’s an actor, juggler, artist. A true thief has pity, has a heart: steal what’s little missed, steal from them as little miss it, steal from them as deserve to have it lost. Then the laughter comes, then you can laugh from the eye outward, and love them you steal from. That’s the way.

  He smiled. He dallied with a new counter, ignoring the gold-washed glitter, a professional eye going past all of that to the opals, the cameos in onyx, the ring—tourmaline; the jade, milk and green; the precious tiny coral that was worth everything on the table—never steal that. That would be missed. He smiled at the merchant and blessed the arrival of a clutch of teenaged girls, which diverted attention one precious instant—

  Not long enough. The easy move with the fine opal headed for his sleeve—the worst of all moments. The merchant’s head turned, his nerve broke: he hurried the move, the unforgivable sudden, suspicion-drawing inconsistency; and knew it. He melted backward in the crowd, knowing every move the merchant made without seeing it, the quick dart of the eye over his well-known counter, the opal— Oh, Lords, he was a fool, it was mnemonic, a set of three he had broken—