“Aye,” Kasten agreed. “I suspect that’s where the dragon’s teeth tale comes from too—which is why I told your man there to remind you of it. The analogy being that the younglings are the teeth, the trained mage is the dragon. What I’d like to know is what’s to do about this? You can’t take the younglings to the Academe—and I surely couldn’t handle them!”
“No, they’re too powerful,” Martis agreed. “They need someone around to train them and keep them drained, until they’ve gotten control over their powers instead of having the powers control them. We have a possible solution, though. The Guild has given me a proposition, but I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with Lyran yet.” She craned her head around to look at him. “How would you like to be a father for the next half-year or so?”
“Me?” he replied, too startled to refer to himself in third person.
She nodded. “The Council wants them to have training, but feels that they would be best handled in a stable, home-like setting. But their blood-parents are frightened witless of them. But you—you stood up to them, you aren’t afraid of them—and you’re kind, love. You have a wonderful warm heart. And you know how I feel about youngsters. The Council feels that we would be the best parental surrogates they’re ever likely to find. If you’re willing, that is.”
Lyran could only nod speechlessly.
“And they said,” Martis continued with great satisfaction in her voice, “that if you’d agree, they’d give you anything you wanted.”
“Anything?”
“They didn’t put any kind of limitation on it. They’re worried; these are very Talented children. All five of the Councilors are convinced you and I are their only possible salvation.”
Lyran tightened his arms around her. “Would they—would they give this one rank to equal a Masterclass mage?”
“Undoubtedly. You certainly qualify for Swordmaster—only Ben could better you, and he’s a full Weaponsmaster. If you weren’t an outlander, you’d have that rank already.”
“Would they then allow this one to wed as he pleased?”
He felt Martis tense, and knew without asking why she had done so. She feared losing him so much—and feared that this was just exactly what was about to happen. But they were interrupted before he could say anything. “That and more!” said a voice from the door. It was the Chief Councilor, Dabrel, purple robes straining over his stomach. “Swordmaster Lyran, do you wish to be the young fool that I think you do?”
“If by that, the Mastermage asks if this one would wed the Master Sorceress Martis, then the Mastermage is undoubtedly correct,” Lyran replied demurely, a smile straining at the corners of his mouth as he heard Martis gasp.
“Take her with our blessings, Swordmaster,” the portly mage chuckled. “Maybe you’ll be able to mellow that tongue of hers with your sweet temper!”
“Don’t I get any say in this?” Martis spluttered.
“Assuredly.” Lyran let her go, and putting both hands on her shoulders, turned so that she could face him. “Martis, thena, lady of my heart and Balance of my soul, would you deign to share your life with me?”
She looked deeply and soberly into his eyes. “Do you mean that?” she whispered. “Do you really mean that?”
He nodded, slowly.
“Then—” she swallowed, and her eyes misted briefly. Then the sparkle of mischief that he loved came back to them, and she grinned. “Will you bloody well stop calling yourself ‘this one’ if I say yes?”
He sighed, and nodded again.
“Then that is an offer I will definitely not refuse!”
The Cup and the Caldron
This story was written for the Grail anthology that was to be presented at the World Fantasy convention in Atlanta. Richard Gilliam, approached me and asked me if I would contribute. We discussed this idea, which I had almost immediately, and he loved it, so I wrote it. The book was later broken into two volumes and published as Grails of Light and Grails of Darkness.
Rain leaked through the thatch of the hen-house; the same dank, cold rain that had been falling for weeks, ever since the snow melted. It dripped on the back of her neck and down her back under her smock. Though it was nearly dusk, Elfrida checked the nests one more time, hoping that one of the scrawny, ill-tempered hens might have been persuaded, by a miracle or sheer perversity, to drop an egg. But as she had expected, the nests were empty, and the hens resisted her attempts at investigation with nasty jabs of their beaks. They’d gotten quite adept at fighting, competing with and chasing away the crows who came to steal their scant feed over the winter. She came away from the hen-house with an empty apron and scratched and bleeding hands.
Nor was there remedy waiting for her in the cottage, even for that. The little salve they had must be hoarded against greater need than hers.
Old Mag, the village healer and Elfrida’s teacher, looked up from the tiny fire burning in the pit in the center of the dirt-floored cottage’s single room. At least the thatch here was sound, though rain dripped in through the smoke-hole, and the fire didn’t seem to be warming the place any. Elfrida coughed on the smoke, which persisted in staying inside, rather than rising through the smoke-hole as it should.
Mag’s eyes had gotten worse over the winter, and the cottage was very dark with the shutters closed. “No eggs?” she asked, peering across the room, as Elfrida let the cowhide down across the cottage door.
“None,” Elfrida replied, sighing. “This spring—if it’s this bad now, what will summer be like?”
She squatted down beside Mag, and took the share of barley-bread the old woman offered, with a crude wooden cup of bitter-tasting herb tea dipped out of the kettle beside the fire.
“I don’t know,” Mag replied, rubbing her eyes—Mag, who had been tall and straight with health last summer, who was now bent and aching, with swollen joints and rheumy eyes. Neither willow-bark nor eyebright helped her much. “Lady bless, darling, I don’t know. First that killing frost, then nothing but rain—seems like what seedlings the frost didn’t get, must’ve rotted in the fields by now. Hens aren’t laying, lambs are born dead, pigs lay on their own young . . . what we’re going to do for food come winter, I’ve no notion.”
When Mag said “we,” she meant the whole village. She was not only their healer, but their priestess of the Old Way. Garth might be hetman, but she was the village’s heart and soul—as Elfrida expected to be one day. This was something she had chosen, knowing the work and self-sacrifice involved, knowing that the enmity of the priests of the White Christ might fall upon her. But not for a long time—Lady grant.
That was what she had always thought, but now the heart and soul of the village was sickening, as the village around her sickened. But why?