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SWORD AND SORCERESS XVI

EDITED BY

Marion Zimmer Bradley

DAW BOOKS, INC.

DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER

375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM

SHEILA E. GILBERT

PUBLISHERS

Cover art by Michael Whelan

DAW Book Collectors No. 1124.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Putnam Inc. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to

persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as

"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this

"stripped book."

First Printing, June 1999 23456789 10

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED 'U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES —MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

THE KAPPA'S GIFT

by Fujiko

THE CHANGELESS ROOM

by Charlotte Carlson

ISABELLE AND THE SIREN

by Mary Catelli

DRAGON'S TEAR

by Sonya Fedotowsky

A SISTER'S BLOOD

by Patricia B. Cirone

CHANGED

by Lisa Deason

THE POWER TO CHANGE THE

SHAPE OF THE LAND

by Dayle A. Dermatis

THE FROG PRINCE

by Linda J. Dunn

HONEY FROM THE ROCK

by Dorothy J. Heydt

THE WILL OF THE WIND

by Christina Krueger

MOONLIGHT ON WATER

by Carol E. Leever

NINE SPRINGS

by Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch

MISTWEAVER

by Terry McGarry

WAKING THE STONE MAIDEN

by Cynthia McQuillin

CITY OF NO-SLEEP

by Vera Nazarian

DAUGHTER OF THE BEAR

by Diana Paxson

THE WISHING STONES

by Lisa S. Silverthorne

A FOOL'S GAME

by Selina Rosen

THE ANVIL OF HER PRIDE

by Lawrence Schimel

THE DANCING MEN OF BALLYBEN

by Laura J. Underwood

SALT & SORCERY

by Elisabeth Waters and Michael Spence

WEAVING SPELLS

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

ENAREE, AN AZKHANTIAN TALE

by Deborah Wheeler

THE DAY THEY RAN OUT OF PRINCESSES

by Gail Sosinsky Wickman

TAKING FLIGHT

by Susan Wolven

THE VISION THAT APPEARED

by Katherine L. Rogers

INTRODUCTION

It's hard to believe I've been doing these volumes for as long as I have. Every year I realize again how lucky

I am to be able to do this series, to discover new writers, and to read new stories by my old friends, many of

whom were new writers when I first encountered them. I remember looking at the new books shelf in a local

science-fiction bookstore one day about eight years ago, and thinking that the names on the new releases looked a

lot like the table of contents of a volume of Sword and Sorceress. By now I have writers whose first stories I

bought bringing new writers into the field, following our tradition of "paying forward"—since we can't pay back the

writers and editors who helped us when we were young and just starting out.

Both the world we live in and the stories I get have changed over the years. The first few years, I got so many

stories about women who knew that they could do tradi-tional "men's work" and were busy proving it to men. Now

that a good part of our world has figured out the truth of that (or at least passed laws to that effect), I don't

get many of those stories anymore.

It's like the basic rule of science fiction: just grant your gimmicks, and get on with your story. (This is why

science fiction has FTL travel and transporters, and fantasy has teleportation spells. They save travel time,

so you can get right to the story.) Also, after the second year, I put my foot down and said I refused to buy any more

stories about women proving they could

be camel herders, or whatever it was the men said they couldn't be.

But now that so many women hold down "men's jobs" in addition to having families and homes to take

care of—all too frequently without any help from the man who promised to be there and help, I'm starting to see

another sort of story. A woman may be able to do any-thing, but that doesn't mean that she can do everything. And I

sometimes suspect that too many of us are trying to do just that.

This year I noticed that quite a few of the stories I got were about women coping with things they weren't

at all sure they could do. We've gone from needing to prove our abilities to men to having to prove them to ourselves.

So now we have stories about women perse-vering against all odds, keeping on with their lives no matter what the

world throws at them, coping with disas-ter, and surviving. Perhaps that's the motto for the end of the millennium: just

keep going. When you fall, pick yourself up and try again.

That certainly applies to my writers. A very few sell to me on their first try, but most of them

have years of rejection slips before their first sale. The ones who succeed are the ones who work hard and

keep trying.

For anyone who wants to submit a manuscript for Sword and Sorceress, first send a #10 SASE (self-addressed

stamped envelope) to Sword and Sorceress, P.O. Box 72, Berkeley CA 94701-0072. The guidelines for my magazine

(Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine) are available from P.O. Box 249, Berkeley CA 94701-0249, or on my

Web site, www.mzbfm.com. The Web site also has useful information for beginning, writers, including the articles I

used as handouts when I taught a writer's workshop some years ago. The magazine is an easier market; I get to do four

of them a year, instead of just one, and the story requirements, not being limited to sword and sorcery with female

protagonists, are less rigid. The magazine gives me a chance to play

with additional types of stories, including contemporary settings, which I don't use for Sword and Sorceress. But I

love both the anthology and the magazine, and I wouldn't give either of them up for anything.

THE KAPPA'S GIFT

by Fujiko

Fujiko was born in Japan, near Mount Fuji; she was, of course, named after the mountain. At the not very obser-vant

age of six months, she and her family moved to Chile, where she spent "an almost embarrassingly idyllic

childhood" until 1968, when her family moved to Vancou-ver, Canada. She spent several years in the public

schools—which I know from experience can be a far from idyllic surrounding—and then struggled through

four years of university to earn a Bachelor of Science degree which she has never used in her work, but

which she says has enhanced her ability to understand and enjoy her surroundings.

She met her future husband, Tero, when she was four-teen, and they are now doing their best to make decent

human beings of their son, Brian, fourteen, and daughter, Selene, eleven. (It doesn't matter much what you do, when

they're older they'll think you did everything wrong; that's just human experience.)

She also has, as is par for most writers, an assortment of animals: an English cocker spaniel named Kelsie;

three cats, Simba, Nikki, and Tasha; three guinea pigs; a ham-ster; and assorted fish and transient frogs. Aw,

shucks! You mean you didn't have the imagination to name the fish and frogs? i was really looking forward to

knowing what names you'd give to all of them—particularly the tran-sient ones.

Well, for a story as imaginative and not overdone as this, I guess we'll just have to forgive you. It's nice to get some

mythology that isn't Celtic, as well as a reminder that gifts can come in unexpected ways and forms.

Aki paused to listen to the sounds of the night crea-tures awakening around her in the growing dark-ness. The familiar

noises made her smile, but tonight there was no time to sit and enjoy them. She still faced a long walk back to the

farmhouse and wished she hadn't dawdled in the fields. The young cucumbers filling the basket on her back felt

heavier with every step. Sighing, Aki adjusted the straps of the basket on her shoulders and continued to trudge

along the river path.

A loud splash at the water's edge made Aki jump. With the back of her neck tingling in alarm, she scanned

the reeds along the riverbank. She could detect no move-ment or anything out of the ordinary; still, her steps

quickened of their own accord.

Suddenly, a shadow unraveled itself from the tall water reeds and stepped onto the path in front

of her. She cringed back with a sharp cry, and then laughed out loud in relief when she saw that the shadow

was no bigger than she was. It was only a young boy.

"You nearly scared me to death!" Aki said to him. She started forward with a smile, and froze. What stood

in front of her was not a boy. Horror crawled along her spine as her eyes took in details of the creature that confronted

her. At first glance it did look like a boy, but on its back it bore a shell like a turtle. The top of its head had a

bowllike depression filled with water and was rimmed with long, black hair that hung in wet spikes. The amphibian face

had cunning, intelligent eyes that watched her with great interest.

"Kappa!" Aki gasped. She had always thought kappas were a myth, a creepy story to tell children at bedtime. Now

she faced one in the flesh, and she forced her terri-fied mind to remember the many stories she had heard. They were

magical—but how? Water in the bowl at the top of their heads held their power and magic; without it they were very

weak. They were blamed for many children's drownings. Cucumbers were a drug to them, causing a feeling of euphoria.

They stole farm animals and

ate them. But did they attack people? Aki couldn't remember.

Barely able to control her shaking knees, Aki swal-lowed hard and said, "I have no quarrel with you. Let me pass,

and I will not harm you." She marveled at her own gall. It was clearly obvious to both her and the kappa

that if there were any harm to be done, she wouldn't be the one doing it.

The kappa stood on thin, bowed legs and stared at her, its gray-green skin shining with a slimy glint.

Sud-denly, it let out a long hiss and raised its head, sniffing the air with disgusting, wet noises. Aki watched,

para-lyzed with fear, unable to react when it closed the space between them and grabbed the basket on her back. She

fell hard on her knees and struggled to regain her feet as the creature hauled the basket toward the river,

drag-ging her behind. Fearing that she would die if they reached the water, she redoubled her efforts. She

twisted and rolled, scattering the cucumbers from the basket.

The kappa stopped and eyed the vegetables strewn on the dirt. It could not ignore a cucumber any more

than a starving dog could ignore a piece of bloody meat. It bent down to reach for one, and Aki, seeing her chance to

escape, kicked with all her might. Her foot caught the kappa on the side of the face and sent it rolling to the ground. It

screamed in rage as it felt the water spilling from the bowl on the top of its head. Aki tried to get away from the

nightmarish creature but slipped in the mud. Feeling its strength draining, the kappa frantically flailed its arms, clawing

at Aki's kimono and slashing her thigh. She screamed in pain and terror and fell once more to the ground. The

kappa lunged at the basket again and yanked. Aki rolled backward, crushing the kappa underneath her. Without

its extraordinary strength the creature was unable to hold Aki down, and she man-aged to stand up. She tried to

run, but she could still feel the kappa holding on to the basket. Wild with des-peration she turned her head,

and from the corner of her eye she saw the handle of the small hatchet, her

natta, sticking up above the basket's rim. Whipping her arm back, she jerked the natta free and swung it in a

wide arc. The sharp blade caught the kappa's thin arm above the elbow and sliced through it.

With an agonizing scream the kappa fell to the ground holding the stub of its arm in a webbed hand. Aki stood

stunned as the creature convulsed and screeched in the mud. She closed her eyes to shut out the horrifying

image, and then she turned and ran.

Aki ran blindly, with the hellish screeching echoing in her head. She ran until her lungs were bursting and she

could no longer feel her legs. When she thought she could not go another step, she saw the farmhouse

lights ahead and forced her legs to keep moving. Finally, she stumbled through the back door, and collapsed on the

floor.

"Where have you been all this time?" yelled her Aunt Noriko, stomping toward her. "What the . . . look at

you! You've ruined your clothes! And the basket, too!" she said, pulling the basket off Aki's limp body.

The inner door of the kitchen slid open, and her cousin Goro stood framed in the doorway. He watched

silently as Aki slowly picked herself up from the floor. His eyes narrowed when he saw the rips in her kimono, and

the blood on her exposed thigh.

"A kappa—" said Aki trying to catch her breath. "I— I was attacked by a kappa—by the river."

Goro walked up to Aki and slapped her hard across the face. The unexpected blow sent her sprawling back to the

floor.

"Liar!" he yelled. His face was red and his speech slurred. He had obviously been drinking.

"No! A horrible monster attacked me! A kappa!" she insisted.

Goro slapped her again. Pain seared her face, but she gritted her teeth and glared at him. Goro, breathing hard

through his nose, would have hit her again but was stopped by Aunt Noriko's scream of horror.

"What is that?" said the old woman pointing at the basket.

Goro picked up the basket by its rim and held it high. The kappa's arm swung from the bottom, its curved

claws caught in one of the straps.

"It's the kappa's arm," said Aki. "I told you. It at-tacked me. I cut off its arm and ran home."

Goro studied the grotesque arm for a long time, and then he looked at Aki and started to laugh. He lifted

and pulled at the arm, but it held fast. Swearing, he stepped on the basket and yanked it free. Holding the arm up like a

trophy he went back to his room, Aunt Noriko following on his heels. Aki slumped against the wall as they

disappeared through the door. Goro's voice reached her from the other room.

"I'll take the kappa's arm to the castle and present it to Lord Minagawa. He'll be so pleased he'll reward me with

gold," he said and slurped noisily from a jug of sake.

"You better be careful," warned Aunt Noriko. "Kap-pas have magic. What do we do if it comes looking for its arm?

I've heard they do that," she added in a fright-ened voice.

There was a silent pause as Goro considered this. "The kappa is badly wounded; it won't move tonight.

Tomorrow, after I take the arm to the castle, I'll wait for it. If it comes, I'll trap it and put it in a cage.

I bet people will pay good money to see a kappa" he said, guffawing.

Aki had heard enough. She quietly stepped outside and limped toward the bathhouse. A quick inspection of her

wounds showed that the slashes on her thigh were not nearly as bad as she had feared. Easing into the deep tub, she

let the steaming hot water soothe her battered body while her mind reeled with the unbelievable events of the day. It

was almost inconceivable that she had survived the kappa attack with less damage than she normally received from

Goro's beatings. Aki gingerly touched her swollen cheek, and smirked. She thought how ironic it

was that her own flesh and blood was more savage than the greatly feared kappa monsters.

With a sudden shock, Aki realized that the kappa had never actually attacked her. She replayed every detail of the

encounter again. The kappa could have easily killed her with one quick swipe of its claws across her throat, yet all its

efforts had been concentrated on taking the basket . . . the cucumbers. The kappa had never made any moves to hurt

her purposely. The gashes on her leg had happened while it had been flailing its arms trying to grab the basket.

Looking back, her wounds now seemed almost incidental, accidental even.

The only attacks during the encounter had come from her. She was the one who had kicked the kappa and

then cut off its arm. Could it be possible that it would have let her go unharmed if she had just dropped the basket?

The image of Goro swearing and tugging trying to untangle the arm from the basket popped into her head and she

realized that the kappa had not been holding on to the basket. Its hand had been caught in the strap! She

shuddered as a ball of guilt exploded in her stomach.

Back in her own room, Aki put out her sleeping fu-tons on the floor and fell into them exhausted. Goro's loud voice

came through from the other room. He was still talking about the fame and fortune that would soon be his. Aki snorted

in disgust and pulled the futons over her head.

Long after Goro's voice had slowed to a stop and her aunt's steady snoring had started its familiar echoing

through the house, Aki lay wide awake. Her mind still raced with thoughts of the kappa. New images of it dying in a

cage added to her guilt.

Unable to live with the guilt any longer, she quickly put on her clothes and tiptoed into Goro's room. On

her hands and knees she felt along the floor for the kappa's arm and almost yelped in surprise when

her hand touched the cold, slimy skin. Picking it up with a shudder, she ran to the outer kitchen and found

her

basket. She put the arm in the basket and, shrugging the straps on her shoulders, she stole into the night.

Many times during the long walk back to the river Aki wondered if she had lost her mind, but she continued on.

When she arrived at the spot where she had encountered the kappa earlier she stopped and called out as politely as

she knew how. "Kappa-san!" Her voice sounded thin and frightened. "Kappa-san! I... I've brought your arm back!"

She called a little louder and waited. Nothing happened. She was just beginning to think that the whole exercise had

been a mistake when there was a soft splash in the reeds behind her.

Horror washed over Aki again as she turned to face the kappa. It plodded from the reeds to the path and

stood stooped on trembling legs. Its webbed hand still clutched the stub of its arm. Aki could see that it was very

weak, but she would not take any chances.

"Tilt your head and drain the water from the top of your head," she said, fear making her voice harsher than she

intended. "Then I'll return your arm."

The kappa looked at her silently for a moment, then slowly tipped its head forward and let the water dribble from

the bowl. As the last drops of water spilled out, the kappa's knees buckled and it toppled to the ground.

Aki quickly put the basket on the ground and placed the kappa's arm in front of it. "Here is your arm. There are a

few cucumbers left in the basket. You can have them," she said, stepping aside.

The kappa dragged itself over to the arm and col-lapsed on top of it. It rolled on its side, gasping for

breath, and feebly tried to connect the dead arm to its stump. The pitiful sight brought a lump to Aki's throat. She was

the cause of the creature's suffering; she should help, but she didn't know how. She stood immobile with indecision

while the kappa struggled to lift its head, then she suddenly realized what she must do.

Aki stepped to the river's edge and quickly returned with water in her cupped hands. She held the water

above the kappa's head and said, "Before I give you this water, you must promise not to harm me or any other

human." The kappa looked up at her and nodded. She let the water flow between her fingers and could immedi-ately

see the strength returning to the kappa. Sitting up, it once again attempted to join the arm to its stub. For-getting the

fear and revulsion she had felt only moments before, Aki held the arm in place and watched as the kappa stretched

and pinched the skin and muscles along the cut. The webbed hand then covered the fissure and in a few minutes the

arm was reattached. Aki stared in amazement. She would never have believed had she not seen it with her own eyes.

The kappa clenched and unclenched its fist and, seem-ingly satisfied with its arm, ate a few cucumbers from the

basket and closed its eyes to rest. Aki watched the peacefully resting figure. It wasn't a monster, only a creature that

belonged to the river. Feeling like an in-truder, Aki stood up to leave but was stopped by a webbed hand on

her leg.

"Thank you," said the kappa looking up at her.

The words were more of a hiss than speech, but the meaning was undeniable. Aki stared at the kappa with

a gaping mouth. "You can speak?" she asked incredu-lously. The kappa nodded. It stood up and gently placed both

hands on Aki's head. Soft warmth emanated from its hands. The warmth moved through her head to her body and to

her limbs until it filled every inch of her being.

"You have saved my life and the life of the unborn son I carry," said the kappa. "In gratitude, I will share

my healing powers with you."

"But I don't know how to use these powers," said Aki.

"You will know when the time comes," said the kappa and looked deep into Aki's eyes. "Your kind is so

young!" Aki heard the kappa exclaim in wonder, and then felt her head explode with images and feelings so

ancient her mind could not comprehend them. Aki drowned in the whirling sensations for what felt like an

eternity, and at the first hints of dawn the kappa released her from the mental link and bid her farewell. It walked to the

river and disappeared into the murky waters. Aki sat and watched the river for many hours afterward, but she never

saw the kappa again.

It was mid-morning when Aki finally made her way back to the farmhouse. She heard Goro yelling her name and

looked up to see him running toward her. Judging from his expression, she was in more trouble than she had ever

been. The thought of running flitted through her mind, but she immediately dismissed it. She had no-where to run.

When Goro reached her, he hit her so hard she flew backward for several feet and landed in a heap at the

side of the path. Goro's rage at having his fame and fortune stolen from under his nose was so great it was not easily

sated, and the beating that followed was so brutal that some farmers working in nearby fields were forced to intervene.

The men who rescued Aki carried her limp form to Aunt Noriko's farmhouse. They looked at her broken body and

sadly shook their heads. They thought that she would surely die.

When Aunt Noriko saw Aki carried in, she cried out loud. She cried with anger over Goro's stupidity. What

purpose did it serve to kill the girl? If Aki died, she would have nobody to help her with the chores. Goro

had become a lazy drunk, and Noriko wished she had beaten some sense into him long ago. It was too late

now; he most likely was already hiding and taking refuge in a jug of sake.

Aki could not see, or move, or even breathe. Her life was draining away and she had no strength to fight. She

floated in an ocean of pain when the image of wise, intelligent eyes pulled her back. I don't want to die, she thought

and drifted back into a void.

A few days later Aki awoke well-rested and strong. She looked at the shafts of morning sunshine coming through

the window and wondered why she had been allowed to sleep so late. Then the sight of an ugly yellow bruise

covering her right arm brought memories of the beating and the kappa flooding back into her mind. She^ trembled

uncontrollably as she relived the memories. Al-though she had no clear recollection of the beating, she knew that the

only reason she was still alive was because of the kappa. She also knew that she could no longer stay in

Aunt Noriko's house.

Goro was still sleeping; Aki could hear him snoring. Aunt Noriko was out in the fields. Without anyone there to

stop her, Aki simply walked out of the house and headed down the road.

As Aki slowly left behind the little group of farm-houses and everything familiar, the enormity of her ac-tion began

to dawn on her. She had no plans, nowhere to go. Aki sat down at the side of the road to think, when she

noticed a little yellow butterfly floundering on the dirt. It had a torn wing. She gently picked it up and wished that it

could fly again. As soon as her thought had formed, the butterfly's wing began to mend, and in just a few

moments it flew out of her hand and was carried away by the breeze. She stared at it in disbelief. The kappa's

healing powers! Of course Aki knew that she was alive because of them, but she had not thought of them in terms of

others.

She remembered the village tofu-maker's little boy who had been trampled by a runaway horse and could no longer

walk. Perhaps she could help. No, she would help. And the young geisha girl wasting away with a strange fever. And

surely there would be many others who could also use her help. With that thought, Aki was no longer afraid of her

uncertain future.

Before heading for the village, Aki made a detour to the fields. She picked as many cucumbers as she could carry

and took them to the riverbank. She bowed by the river's edge and sent the kappa a silent prayer of gratis-

tude for the wonderful gift she had received. And to the end of her days, no matter where her travels took

her, Aki returned to the river every summer and left an of-fering of young cucumbers by the muddy banks.

THE CHANGELESS ROOM

by Charlotte Carlson

This is as close to a horror story as I ever buy, and when I read the first paragraph I almost tossed it on the "Reject"

pile. People who know me know that I usually go for very mild flavors in the gruesome, probably due to the fact that

the sharer of my home and editorial duties, Lisa, is not even as tolerant of the horrible as I am, and in general I don't

like buying stories that Lisa can't or won't read. But I read a page and got hooked; I predict you will, too, if you give it a

fair chance. And it's really not all that scary—if Charlotte Carlson will forgive me for saying so.

This is Charlotte's first professional sale, although she has been dictating stories to her mother since she was

three. (She started even younger than I did.) She was born in Florida, and now lives in California with her parents

and younger sister, a Border Collie named Murphy and a cat named Sen-gen.

She says this story is a gift to her mother for her Croning.

The Changeless Room was said to be the darkest place in the world in spite of the light of the Soul Candle

that it was built to protect. Cold and black— once the door clicked closed. Yet, human nature being what it is,

countless adventurers from all lands, all walks of life, sought it.

At least some of them, certainly, searched for the pur-est of reasons: the snuffing of Cryshade's Candle. But others

were drawn by avarice and a curiosity that gave no thought for the purpose of such a creation. They sought

the legendary treasure that was said to grace the

base of the Candle (in truth a littering of armor and jewelry from those who, upon entering the Changeless Room, had

failed to leave again) or the fame of having found what so many before them had striven for but never

reached.

But imagine little Sihir's surprise when she went down into the cellar for more candles and found a door tower-ing

over her that she had never seen before. Really, it shouldn't have been there at all; it was too tall for the low-ceilinged

cellar and hinged right into the permafrost. Sihir noted the large brass leaf in the center of the door—it

was as tall as she was—and the trademark latches of interlocking leaves, and bent to pluck eight thick

candles out of their storage box. Hugging them to her chest, she went back up the stairs and shut the cellar

door.

Over the next few weeks every member of her family made trips into the cellar for various things (mostly can-dles,

which went quickly this far north where the sun rose and set practically on the same horizon), and none of them

ever said anything about a phantom door haunting the cellar.

Sihir knew what it was, of course. She knew all about the Changeless Room that held cursed Cryshade's Soul

Candle, and had heard the tales of the fates of those stupid enough to open the leaf-decorated door. When

the nights were two and three times as long as the days, the stories were the only thing that kept the house alive, and

she knew them all by heart.

She went down into the cellar three more times for candles, extra blankets, and more oil and ignored the door each

time. Not for her was the fate of the Gil Gnome, or Mad Sham Pete, or Lady Creamskin. And she knew

that if she opened that door, she'd see all of them, and that the Gil Gnome's fabulous Ruby Torque would be loose

around his bleached neckbones, and Mad Sham Pete's "enchanted" sword would be rusting in its moldy sheath (but

the emeralds would be sparkling brightly), and she knew that Lady Creamskin's scrying

diamond would be resting in her spiky rib cage, still attached to its thick gold chain.

Sihir wasn't even tempted. She gathered up the can-dles, blankets, and oil and didn't so much as glance

back down.

She and her family slept in the loft of the house, all together for warmth during winter on a large mattress stuffed

with down. The children in the center, the adults to the sides. Sometimes her aunts and uncles or parents would

volunteer to sleep downstairs (for room, they said) and the children would usurp the entire middle of the bed,

sprawled this way and that, fighting half-asleep for space when there was plenty—just out of habit.

It was on such a night that her cousin Ifhaer acciden-tally elbowed her in the eye. He didn't know it, of

course, being still asleep, and Sihir quelled the urge to hit him back. He wouldn't know why, and it would start a big

fight. Everybody would wake up, and she'd be in trouble.

She squirmed out from under the layers of blankets and expertly picked her way off the mattress without a sound or

a slip. Down the loft ladder she went and qui-etly made her way into the storeroom. Her eye was wa-tering badly; it felt

swollen and she couldn't shake an image of it popping. The door from the storeroom to the outside creaked,

but she opened it slowly and just wide enough that she could snake her arm out and pull in a handful of snow.

The wind nearly tore the door out of her hands. She gasped and pulled it closed. It smashed shut and she

froze for a minute, shivering both from the chill and the possibility of a midnight scolding. But no sound came from

beyond the storeroom.

She sighed and found a rag for the snow and put it against her eye. She started humming a tune her Aunt Aillin

had taught her, hearing the music of the flutes and drums in her head.

But then the drums gained a life of their own. They shattered the melody. The drums were coming from out-

side. They were a horse's hooves crunching through the deep snow.

The crunching stopped very near to the door, and Sihir almost went up to it to greet the person—it could

only be a neighbor at this hour, and there must be some-thing wrong. But the door swung open and smashed into her,

knocking her to the side, pinning her against the wall.

And a giant black bear walked into the storeroom.

At least that was what it looked like from where she huddled. But bears don't generally wear boots, and they don't

wear helmets or travel with big swords strapped across their backs. Of that she was absolutely sure.

But this man—whoever he was—was huge, and his helmet and sword were gilded in places. He closed the door as

though it had just occurred to him that people might be sleeping. He didn't see her.

With great purpose he studied the cellar door and lit a thin torch before swinging it open and creaking down the

steps.

Sihir, being a practical soul, thought about running to wake her parents. But Sihir also thought about that big

sword, and about her utter certainty that he could wield it very well. She determined that the wisest thing to do would

be to lock the cellar door behind him and then call her parents. He could probably hack through it, but by

then they'd be ready for him.

She crawled over to the edge of the cellar door and reached across the opening to close it, readying herself to spring

up and pull the bolt, but saw something very strange. Something that told her that this man wasn't a thief—at least not

in the usual sense. The top of his helmet made a gold star—four points—the sign of a Souther sorcerer.

Sihir had never heard of a sword-carrying sorcerer be-fore, even from the South, but no one wore the Star in Gold

except them; swindlers and would-be charlatans smartly kept a respectful distance from their calling. And

if a Souther had trudged this far north at this time of the year, there could be only one reason.

The stairs gave a final creak as the dark-clad sorcerer stepped from them to the floor of the cellar, and stayed silent

as Sihir gingerly put a foot on the top stair. She'd lived in this house all her life and knew precisely where to step. She

knew that the third stair from the top always made a cracking sound like it was about to snap in two (no matter how

much weight was on it), and she grabbed onto the rail and lowered herself to the fourth. The fifth step only made noise

if you went down the middle of it, and the ninth step only if you stepped on the left side.

Five more quick steps and she was on the floor behind the man, in the dark of his shadow. The floor was freez-ing

against her bare feet, and the wild shadows cast by his thin torch made the cellar a very sinister place.

As she'd guessed, he was staring up at the door, seeing it plainly as no one in her house but she had. Naturally, he

reached for the leaf-shaped latch.

"No!" She couldn't help it. Even though he was a Souther, she couldn't let him do it.

He whipped about, brandishing his torch, but he had expected an adult and waved it too high to burn her.

She yelped and leaped to the side. In her haste to get away from the torch, it hadn't occurred to her that she had now

placed the sorcerer between her and her only exit.

Heaving for breath, the sorcerer moved in front of the stairs. He pulled back the torch and held out a pacifying

hand. "Shhh. I'm not going to harm you, girl! Hush!"

His size made her doubt him. Sihir thought he could probably crush her head in one hand.

"Calm down," the sorcerer said. "I just want to see inside."

See inside and stay inside, the stories said. Sihir was still trying to catch her breath. She was shaking her head at

the same time. "N-no," she breathed hoarsely. "You'll be trapped."

"How can I be trapped if I keep my feet out here?"

"It's the Changeless Room." She felt like she was talking to one of her baby cousins. "You just will."

He smiled at her and raised one hand to take off his helmet. Without it he didn't look nearly as scary. In fact, he

looked quite amiable. "I appreciate your concern, child. I would never have expected it from a Norther. But I have ways

of protecting myself." He showed her the Star in Gold.

Foolish, foolish, foolish. "Everyone has said that," she said. "All of them: the Gil Gnome, Lady Creamski—"

"Creamskin? Those are just stories. Here." He pre-sented her with his helmet. "You can give it back to me when the

door closes again."

No, you'll be inside the Room.

Numbly she took the helmet. It was much heavier than she thought, and she nearly dropped it on her toes.

The star alone was as big across as her chest. The sor-cerer nodded reassuringly and turned his attention back to the

door.

For some reason she thought he would draw his sword. Maybe she'd thought it was a magical sword. But

he didn't. Instead he reached a gloved hand inside his black fur coat and withdrew a small leather pouch.

He went to stand by the door and planted his feet carefully before pulling the drawstring on the pouch and

crouching to sprinkle its contents over his boots. Before he opened the door, he glanced back at Sihir once and smiled

one more time. His fingers curled around the han-dle, and Sihir ducked behind some grain sacks. His thumb

pressed the latch.

He took a deep breath and jerked the door open a head's width.

Nothing.

He held his torch higher.

Nothing.

Slowly, he opened the door wider and thrust his torch into the dark beyond it.

Sihir could barely breathe. She was waiting for giant

hands to rip the sorcerer and his petty magic right off the floor and suck him inside for eternity.

Nothing.

He seemed to be getting impatient. The adrenaline was ebbing, and she could see that his stance was

grow-ing lazier. He opened the door wider, and then flung it open all the way. The phantasmic door that should not

have fit in the low-ceilinged cellar did something else it should not have been able to do; it swung freely through the

boxes that would have stopped a real door and crashed back against the permafrost wall.

The sorcerer spoke a word that Sihir had never heard and stepped into the chamber. He was cursing.

Sihir didn't move.

. He was saying something about a dirty-rotten trick, and he was muttering something about murder.

Sihir poked her head up a little. "What is it?"

"You know damn well what it is!" he hissed. "It's the rest of your cursed cellar!"

Sihir knew it was a trick. Dirty and rotten, and it was on the sorcerer. She did something impractical and got up to

peer inside. Knowing that the door was about to slam closed on the foolish man, she moved very cautiously.

But what she saw made her straighten from her half-crouch and frown through the doorway. The chamber beyond

was lit by his torch, and it was filled with boxes and stacks of blankets and sacks of grain scattered across the floor.

He was kicking the sacks and cursing, still staring in disbelief around the little permafrost-walled room. One of the

sacks flew at Sihir, and she whirled away from it instinctively. What broke over her back, though, wasn't the

deadweight of a grain sack but a splintering rib cage.

She turned back in horror and saw the truth. The sor-cerer was standing right in front of a giant waxy cylin-der—he

was dwarfed by it—and he was kicking through the remains of his predecessors that littered the floor.

The ice behind the door started to crackle, and the

impossible door itself began to shake, and Sihir cried out. He just looked at her as though it wasn't a funny joke.

The door freed itself from the permafrost and Sihir dove forward reflexively, jamming the door open with the

helmet that bore the Star In Gold.

She heard the sorcerer's muffled shriek, saw his torch drop and sputter out in a wad of moldy clothing. In the

sudden absence of the firelight the sorcerer was backlit by a faint reddish glow.

The Candle.

Cryshade's tormentors had taken her soul and given her an eternity of ghosthood by winding its waxy sub-stance

into a candle that would never burn down. And no one had ever seen the Soul Candle from the other side of

the door before little Sihir poked her head into the dark.

"Souther! I caught the door, but I can't pull it back— and I think your helmet is crushing."

The snapping of bones met her ears, growing closer, and then she felt the heat of the sorcerer and his breath on her

face. His huge hands caught the door and she heard him grunt with strain.

"It won't move," he whispered after a moment.

Sihir couldn't see a thing, and she couldn't think. No story about the Changeless Room had ever given a clue as to

what should be done if the Room materialized in your cellar and you managed to catch the door before it

could lock shut on any trespassers who were stupid enough to be inside. One thing she knew for certain was that, no

matter how much force they put to the door, if the sorcerer couldn't muscle it open, it couldn't be muscled.

"Don't you have a spell or something?" she asked him. His panic was palpable.

"No." She thought he might die of fright even before his helmet gave way. "I didn't think I'd go in."

The metal of the helmet was making a strange noise as it bent, and Sihir didn't know what to do. She had a

mental image of the sorcerer's face, an image of the horror plastered across it, and she couldn't turn away.

The metallic crinkling stopped suddenly and the door trembled for a moment and finally stilled.

"The Star," she heard the sorcerer breathe. Relief was in his voice, but not much.

A tiny glint of gold, imperceptible to anyone with even a little light, told her where the Star in Gold was on

the helmet. "It won't break?" she whispered.

"I don't know," he replied softly. "I still can't move the door."

"Could it hold long enough for us to get a message to another sorcerer?" In the hiatus, Sihir was thinking

again. She wished she wasn't the only one.

"I don't know," he repeated. His voice was shaky, as though it was only now dawning on him what was hap-

pening. And then he said, "I don't know of any who would help me."

Sihir didn't bother to ask why. Sorcerers didn't usually garner reputations as neighborly sorts. Their petty rival-ries

were legendary. "What about the Candle?" she asked.

The darkness that was the sorcerer moved in front of the vague reddish light from the Candle. "Burn through the

door?" he wondered out loud. But then his darkness moved again, and she heard him settling back close to her. "The

fire won't burn anything. It's the Soul Candle. It's not real fire."

"No, I mean put it out." Her mind was racing. "Put it out, and see what happens."

He sighed. "I can't even see the top, girl."

"Use your sword to climb the wax."

The sorcerer sighed again. "I told you, it's not a real fire."

Sihir got up off the floor and went to the other side of the cellar.

"Where are you going?" A huge man, a sorcerer, a Souther, frightened like a child in the dark.

"There's a box of kindling wedges somewhere in

here," she answered softly. Now she was keeping quiet not just from shock; if her family woke up now, they'd

probably try to do this themselves. It was for their own good.

"Kindling wedges?" the sorcerer whispered also; gods alone knew why.

"Yes. Just a second." She stubbed her toe on a box and bit her lip as she felt its contents with her shaking

fingers. Cold. Ridged. Splintery. She retrieved two of the wedges and felt her way back to the door. Her free hand went

to the ground and followed it to the helmet. Her fingers splayed to judge the size of the opening.

The helmet was big. The opening was just big enough. She said, "Move away from the door," and heard a slight

scuffle as the sorcerer did.

"You think it will burn?"

Sihir didn't stop to consider how odd it was that the sorcerer was asking her such a thing. Of course the door

wouldn't burn! It shouldn't even have been in the cellar. And she suspected that if she'd tried to jam it open with

anything other than the Star In Gold, the sorcerer's fate would already be out of her hands.

She turned sideways and stepped through the door. Against the dead light of the Candle, the sorcerer could finally

see her.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, but he kept his voice hushed. "You'll be trapped, too!"

"Come over to the Candle with me," Sihir told him. She hoped he wouldn't simply heft her up and shove her back

through the door.

But he followed her; she heard the bone cracking under his boots as he walked. She stumbled and cursed

her way across the littered floor, having no boots. And then his hands were on her waist and she started to

protest that she was trying to help him, but he raised her up and sat her on one of his shoulders.

"What can I do?" he asked her.

She recovered herself with effort and looked up. The glowing Candle was too tall for her to see the top. She

reached out a hand. The Candle was warm (or at least warmer) and she took one of the wedges and pressed it into

the wax. "Lift me up to it, so I can stand on it," she ordered.

He hesitated.

"I won't fall."

He hesitated some more. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's like climbing ice." But she hoped he wouldn't press her because it wasn't really like climbing ice at

all—and anyway she'd never climbed ice in her life.

He lifted her up, and she put her small feet on the protruding edge of the wood. The wax was soft enough that she

could dig her fingers into it if she worked at it, and she felt confident that if she had handholds, she could

move the wedges up for her feet. But the wax was also soft enough that the wood started to dip as soon as she

stepped on it, and she was forced to move faster than she'd planned.

She stabbed the Candle with the second piece of wood and stepped onto it quickly, scratching at the wax with an

outstretched arm.

"I'll catch you if you fall," the sorcerer assured her. "Don't be afraid."

She moved carefully, hugging the soft Candle and moving the wedges up with whatever hand happened to be free,

and soon she couldn't hear the sorcerer's breath-ing anymore. She kept going, finding a steady rhythm: grip wax, move

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SWORDANDSORCERESSXVIEDITEDBYMarionZimmerBradleyDAWBOOKS,INC.DONALDA.WOLLHEIM,FOUNDER375HudsonStreet,NewYork,NY10014ELIZABETHR.WOLLHEIMSHEILAE.GILBERTPUBLISHERSCopyright©1999byMarionZimmerBradleyAllRightsReserved.CoverartbyMichaelWhelanDAWBookCollectorsNo.1124.DAWBooksaredistributedbyPenguinPutnamInc...

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