McKillip, Patricia A - Lady of the Skulls

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Lady of the Skulls

Patricia A. McKillip

Like Ursula K. Le Guin and Tanith Lee, Patricia McKillip (b. 1948) was one of those authors who

emerged in the wake of the Tolkien fantasy explosion and became popular, at least initially, for books

written for a teenage market. With McKillip it was The Throme of the Erril of Sherill (1973) followed by

the wonderfully imaginative The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1976), which won the very first World Fantasy

Award. Since then McKillip has produced the Morgan of Hed trilogy, starting with The Riddle-Master

of Hed (1976) — a series redolent of Tolkien and Le Guin — and the continuing Cygnet series, which

began with The Sorceress and the Cygnet (1991). The following is one of McKillip's rare short stories.

THE LADY SAW THEM RIDE ACROSS THE PLAIN: a company of six.

Putting down her watering can, which was the bronze helm of some unfortunate knight, she leaned over

the parapet, chin on her hand. They were all armed, their war-horses caparisoned; they glittered under

the noon sun with silver-edged shields, jewelled bridles and sword hilts. What, she wondered as always

in simple astonishment, did they imagine they had come to fight? She picked up the helm, poured water

into a skull containing a miniature rose bush. The water came from within the tower, the only source on

the entire barren, sun-cracked plain. The knights would ride around the tower under the hot sun for

hours, looking for entry. At sunset, she would greet them, carrying water.

She sighed noiselessly, trowelling around the little rose bush with a dragon's claw. If they were too blind

to find the tower door, why did they think they could see clearly within it? They, she thought in sudden

impatience. They, they, they… they fed the plain with their bleached bones; they never learned…

A carrion-bird circled above her, counting heads. She scowled at it; it cried back at her, mocking. You,

its black eye said, never die. But you bring the dead to me.

"They never listen to me," she said, looking over the plain again, her eyes prickling dryly. In the

distance, lightning cracked apart the sky; purple clouds rumbled. But there was no rain in them, never

any rain; the sky was as tearless as she. She moved from skull to skull along the parapet wall, watering

things she had grown stubbornly from seeds that blew from distant, placid gardens in peaceful

kingdoms. Some were grasses, weeds, or wildflowers. She did not care; she watered anything that grew.

The men below began their circling. Their mounts kicked up dust, snorting; she heard cursing,

bewildered questions, then silence as they paused to rest. Sometimes they called her, pleading. But she

could do nothing for them. They churned around the tower, bright, powerful, richly armed. She read the

devices on their shields: three of Grenelief, one of Stoney Head, one of Dulcis Isle, one of Carnelaine.

After a time, one man dropped out of the circle, stood back. His shield was simple: a red rose on white.

Carnelaine, she thought, looking down at him, and then realized he was looking up at her.

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McKillip, Patricia A - Lady of the Skulls

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