Sword and Sorceress 30 Read online

  Sword and Sorceress 30

  edited by

  Elisabeth Waters

  The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust

  PO Box 193473

  San Francisco, CA 94119

  www.mzbworks.com

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Elisabeth Waters

  The Sea Witches

  Robin Wayne Bailey

  Phoenix for the Amateur Chef

  G. Scott Huggins

  Temple of Chaos

  Marian Allen

  Admissions

  Michael H. Payne

  An Old Dragon’s Treasure

  Robert Lowell Russell

  Liars’ Tournament

  Pauline J. Alama

  Grave Magic

  Steve Chapman

  The Piper’s Wife

  Susan Murrie Macdonald

  Four Paws to Light My Way

  Deborah J. Ross

  Jewels on the Sand

  Catherine Soto

  Death Among the Ruins

  Jonathan Shipley

  Diplomacy in the Dark

  Suzan Harden

  A Fairy Tale of Milk and Coffee

  L.S. Patton

  Possibilities

  Julia H. West

  Dark Speech

  Michael Spence & Elisabeth Waters

  About Sword and Sorceress

  Elisabeth Waters

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Elisabeth Waters

  The thing I look for first when I’m reading stories for Sword and Sorceress is good stories. What constitutes a “good story” differs from editor to editor, of course; it’s probably one of the world’s most subjective decisions. I was talking about MZB when I first described an editor as “a collection of prejudices,” but I think it’s equally true of me and every other editor I know.

  Like some other annual anthologies, Sword and Sorceress has stories that are part of a mini-series: stories set in the same world with the same character or set of characters. Such stories make up about half of this volume. Working with more than one story about the same characters is both a delight and a challenge. I occasionally have to remind our authors that while we hope that our readers are anxiously awaiting each year’s anthology and reading each and every story, we also want to attract new readers. Each story, therefore, absolutely must stand on its own. There’s a big difference between knowing there are previous stories about the characters and not being able to follow what’s happening in the story you have now because you haven’t read the previous ones.

  I like Disney movies—they’re one of my guilty pleasures—but that wasn’t always the case. When I first saw Sleeping Beauty, I was so terrified of Maleficent that I pretended that she was my mother, because surely even Maleficent wouldn’t kill her own daughter. It probably wasn’t the world’s greatest coping strategy, but it did let me sleep alone in my room at night. Besides, I was only seven.

  Probably the only reason I’m remembering this now is that this year there is a Disney TV movie called Descendants, and the protagonist actually is Maleficent’s daughter. She and three of her friends, all children of Disney villains, are sent to a boarding school attended by the children of Disney heroes. It’s sort of like High School Musical meets Avalon High. There’s the usual teenage angst, with singing and dancing, plus magic.

  Magic and fighting ability (pretty much limited to the guys, unfortunately, although Mulan’s daughter is one of the students) don’t really make much difference. What matters are the choices the characters make. Their parents were exiled to the Isle of the Lost due to their misuse of their powers, but Cruella De Vil is one of them, and she never had magic. She used her wealth and influence, thus proving that any type of power can be used either for evil or for good.

  This is what I love about editing Sword and Sorceress. Every year I get to read several hundred stories about characters choosing how to use whatever power they possess, whether it’s strength, magic, knowledge, or some combination of abilities. I get stories about honor, compassion, valor, wisdom, and dealing with handicaps and fears. Then I get to buy the stories I think fit together best and share them. Even after 30 volumes of the anthology, this doesn’t get old.

  I hope that everyone will find something in this book to enjoy and to think about. No matter how much or how little power you have, the choices you make change you and the world around you.

  The Sea Witches

  Robin Wayne Bailey

  There are definite advantages to being female. Women have a natural invulnerability to some things that can enchant a man without even trying. When you are outnumbered by the men around you, however, dealing with the situation is still a challenge.

  Robin Wayne Bailey is a novelist, short story writer, poet and editor. His novels include the Frost series, the Dragonkin young adult trilogy, the Brothers of the Dragon trilogy, along with stand-alones such as Shadowdance and the Fritz-Leiber-inspired Swords against the Shadowland. His short work has appeared in Darkover® and Sword and Sorceress anthologies, and in many other places. He’s currently editing a landmark anthology called Architects of Wonder: Fifty Years of Nebula Short Fiction and Little Green Men—Attack! for Baen Books. He’s a former two-term SFWA president and a founder of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

  Rough hands shook Cymbalin from a heavy sleep. She lashed out instinctively, but the rope mesh hammock that served as her berth in the hold of the Free Mariner hampered her movements. Before her eyes fully opened, she hit someone, maybe kicked them. She wasn’t sure. She tried to claw her way up out of a dreamy fog.

  Deep voices cursed and scowled. “Wake her up!” someone shouted.

  Cymbalin felt a strong grip on her shoulder. She batted it away and tried to sit up, but sleep still dulled her senses. She forgot where she was and tumbled out of the hammock, sprawling on the ship’s deck. More hands grabbed her, and she felt herself half-lifted by the lapels of her jerkin.

  “Where are the men?” She caught the aroma of leeks and beer as a face leaned close to hers. Gruff voices echoed the first, all frantic and full of fear. “Where is the crew?”

  Cymbalin put her hand in the face of the closest man and pushed him back. She fumbled for her sword. It wasn’t on her hip, nor would it be in her sleep. Too groggy, she thought, remembering that all her weapons were locked in the captain’s cabin. No weapons allowed for passengers. With growing awareness, she felt the rocking of the ship, its gentle pitch and roll. At sea, she remembered. The ship’s motion had lulled her to sleep, such a deep sleep, with her daughter in her arms.

  Her eyes snapped open. She stared at the bearded faces of a dozen men with lanterns. Her heart lurched. “My daughter!” she cried. In the wavering light, she shot a desperate look toward the bags of grain, the huge and elaborate vases of wine and olive oil, and the rest of the cargo in the shadowed corners of the ship’s hold. “Where’s my daughter?”

  An old man with sharply wrinkled and weathered features scrambled halfway down the ladder from the main deck above. “There’s a child!” he called to his comrades. His voice conveyed the same fear as the others. “Up in the rigging!”

  “Bring her!” the man with leek-and-beer breath ordered, but Cymbalin pushed through and beat them all to the ladder.

  “Get out of my way, Grandfather,” she growled, and the old man on the ladder retreated back through the hatch. Someone grabbed her ankle as she climbed upward. She kicked back with her booted heel and clambered up to the main deck to find another dozen men standing around the rails and the single mast. None took note of her. They aimed their gazes upward.

  The men in the hold scrambled up
after her. They tried again to seize her, and this time she made no effort to resist. None of them were armed, she realized.

  The sails snapped and billowed in a stiff breeze. They had not been furled although it was plainly the middle of the night. But more confusing, the Free Mariner had made port. Nervous men and women in nightclothes thronged all along the docks with lanterns and torches, yet all kept a safe distance from the makeshift gangplank. Like the men on board, they fixed their attention on the darkly polished mast.

  High up in the rigging on a narrow platform above the crow’s nest, at the ship’s very pinnacle, she spied her daughter.

  Cymbalin’s heart lurched as the deck rolled under her feet. The point of the mast waved back and forth under an unexpected wave, and gasps went up from the men surrounding her. Cymbalin moved past them for a better look. “Sorrow!” she called as the wind picked up and guy wires hummed. “Sorrow!”

  A young, lean-faced man handed Cymbalin his lantern. “I’ll get her,” he offered. He ran to the rigging, tapping a comrade on the shoulder as he went. Together, the two climbed the shroud ropes like monkeys.

  The wind and waves picked up as clouds moved from the north and blotted the pale stars. The voices on the docks grew louder, more fearful, but some called loud encouragements to the climbers. At the crosstree, one of the young rescuers paused and, using his belt, tied himself to the mast while his partner continued upward.

  Cymbalin called her daughter’s name again, wondering if her child could hear over the breeze at such a height. Sorrow didn’t answer or react. With small arms wrapped around the narrowest part of the mast, hair whipping around her face, she only stared outward over the black ocean toward the racing clouds.

  Without taking her eyes from her daughter, Cymbalin spoke to the wrinkle-faced old man now at her side. “Where are we?” she asked. “Why are we in port?”

  “The first I can answer,” he said. “You’re in Linden on the Isle of Parth.”

  The man with leek-and-beer breath pressed closer again. “Where is the crew?” he demanded, clutching at her elbow.

  Cymbalin’s breath hissed slowly between her teeth. She didn’t like to be touched, but these men were not warriors, she saw that now in their eyes and demeanor—just scared and worried townsfolk. “You had a son among them?” she guessed. The man hesitated, then nodded, and his hand slipped away.

  The wind gusted, and the ship lurched. A wave washed up onto the docks, and the watchers screamed as cold sea foam sprayed them. The clouds swept closer, but the remaining climber reached the platform upon which Sorrow stood. The child showed no reaction, and the climber untied his belt, drew Sorrow’s small body against his, and then tied his belt again around both of them. With Sorrow as secure as she could be, he began the precarious climb down.

  The mast rocked like a metronome as the waves grew. The guy wires sang, and the sails snapped and cracked. The first climber reached the second, still waiting at the crosstree. Unbinding himself from the mast, he gave his belt, too, to further secure the child.

  Suddenly, the ship creaked. The vessel rose up, rocked, and slammed into the docks. Cymbalin lost her footing and fell, like most of the men on the deck. “Watch your lanterns!” someone shouted. “That’s oil and fire on a wooden ship!”

  Rising up on an elbow, she shot a frantic look toward the mast. The whipping sails blocked any sight of the climbers, but then she saw them in the shroud, descending toward the starboard rails and the deck.

  Stumbling across the boards, she hurried to meet them. The lean-faced young man who had first volunteered to climb the rigging untied the cords that bound Sorrow to him. His eyes shone with excitement and concern. “She’s limp as a doll,” he said with ragged breaths.

  Cymbalin took Sorrow in her arms and rained kisses upon her. The little girl’s eyes were wide, but unseeing. Cymbalin had seen the condition before on battlefields. “Tell me your name,” she said to the young man.

  “Lane,” he answered. He clapped his fellow climber on the shoulder. “This is Micha.”

  “Lane, Micha,” she repeated, nodding thanks. “I have a sword with belt and dagger in the Captain’s quarters and a small pack under my hammock in the hold. I need to get my daughter off this ship.”

  “Everyone should get off.” Close by, the old man waved a hand. “I’ll get your things. I might be an ancient bit of blubber, but I’ve still got my sea-legs!”

  The other men on board were already heading for the gangplank and abandoning the ship. The crowd on the docks closed in again to see what was happening and to help as they could. Again, the wind gusted, the sails billowed, and the vessel rocked. Over the wail of screeching guy wires, wood suddenly cracked, and the rigging tore free from the crosstree. Cymbalin was no sailor, but even she knew that someone should have furled that sail. The way it caught the wind, the Free Mariner would soon smash itself to splinters against the docks.

  The old man came back with her belongings. “I told you to get off the ship!” he shouted over the rising wind. Cymbalin pushed Sorrow into his arms and grabbed her sword. “Get her off!” she said. She whipped her weapon from its sheath, ran to the mast and hacked at the main sail line. Fighting for balance on the tossing deck, she swung her blade at the line. On the third stroke, the thick rope snapped. With an anguished wind-filled roar, the sail came crashing down.

  Lane and Micha pulled her back barely in time to avoid being crushed by the heavy cloth and rigging lines.

  Together, they ran to the gangplank only to find it gone, shattered between the ship and the docks. “Jump!” someone called from the crowd, and others took up the call.

  “No choice,” Lane said in a surprisingly calm voice as he looked to Cymbalin. “Are you up for this?”

  “No choice,” she answered. She sheathed her weapon and clutched her fist tightly around it. Then, she backed up to the middle of the deck and ran. Her boot barely touched the rail. With a cry, she went flying upward and outward, arms and legs pumping. For a heart-stopping moment, the distance seemed too great, but her boots scraped the docks and she rolled twice before the townspeople caught her.

  Lane and Micha came behind her. Cymbalin rose just in time to see them flip once in midair like a pair of trained acrobats. Show-offs! she thought as they hit the dock and rolled once into the arms of their friends and neighbors.

  The old man pushed his way to her side. Sorrow looked asleep in his arms, peaceful with her eyes softly closed. “Do you want her back?” he asked.

  Cymbalin allowed a small grin, noting the gentle way he held her close. “Eventually,” she answered, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  The man with beer-and-leek breath came up to her. “You probably just saved that ship,” he said, “and the dock, as well. Yet, where is the crew? And if there is no crew, how did the ship sail itself straight into the harbor?”

  “We’d better get inside,” the old man interrupted. He turned his gaze toward the clouds as the first drops of rain splashed on their heads. “A warm fire and a pint will make all of us a little less tetchy, especially you, Rolo.”

  So that was his name, Cymbalin thought. Rolo. She liked Beer-and-Leek Breath better. Rolo scowled. “She had better have some answers!”

  However, she had no answers that they wanted. Inside a tavern, the men of Linden questioned her. A fire burned fiercely in the fireplace, and the old man, whose name was Rohn, made sure that Cymbalin and her child sat close to it. Two of the women brought blankets and made a pallet near the flames for Sorrow. Another brought herb-scented water to wipe the child’s face. Micha pushed a mug of ale into her hand. Micha pushed a mug of ale into Cymbalin’s hand. She thanked him.

  While Rolo continued to badger her, two more men strode into the tavern. The crowded room divided to admit them. “I am Skellen,” the tallest man said by way of introduction, “Chief Marshall of Linden, and this man with me is the harbor-master, Pucket.” Micha and Lane brought ale for both men and provided them with chairs.

&
nbsp; Skellen regarded Cymbalin with a penetrating gaze as he leaned toward her. “Like most of Linden, we were asleep when the Free Mariner sailed into port.” He paused, studying her, noting the sheathed sword she balanced on her lap. “How do you account for that,” he asked quietly, “a ship without captain or crew crossing open water at night and sailing right up to the docks?”

  Cymbalin took a sip from her mug and met the Chief Marshall’s even gaze. She might have answered that she had seen stranger things during her travels. Instead, she shook her head. “I don’t account for it,” she said. “I bought passage on the Free Mariner for myself and my child. We departed from the port at Esgaria and sailed for three days. The captain was good enough to provide a hammock for us in the hold. It was all he could manage, he said, because they weren’t used to women on board.” She took another sip and set her ale down on the hearth. “Last night, I fell asleep with my daughter in my arms.” She looked slowly around the room. “I was still asleep when these men woke me. What happened in the time while I slept?” She shook her head again. “I don’t know. Where the crew is? I don’t know that. How the ship made it into port?” Her eyes turned hard as she regarded the Chief Marshall. “I don’t know that, either.”

  “Ask her how her child got up the mast!” Rolo shouted. “Ask her that!”

  “She was fast asleep when we found her,” Lane said evenly. Micha and Rohn muttered agreement.

  The Chief Marshall asked a different question. “What was your business in Esgaria? We know the reputation of that land, a place of sorcery and wizardry and all manner of dark magic.”

  “And yet, there is a port there, and your ships do business,” Cymbalin answered. With a tight grin, the Chief Marshall inclined his head, acknowledging her point. Cymbalin decided to trust the man. With a few exceptions, the people of Linden had treated her well. “I make my living with my sword and my wits,” she told the room. “I am soldier, no delicate flower of a woman. I’ve seen a score of nations and lands and fought in a dozen wars.” She glanced down at Sorrow, asleep on the pallet by the fire, a nurse still tending to her. “But sooner or later luck runs out for one like me, and I have a daughter.”