Anthology - Realms of Magic Part 11

Kate Novak-Grubb

"This is a waste of time. I don't need to learn this," insisted Marl, the cooper's son.

Kith Lias glared at the boy, but she kept her temper in check. Marl was hardly the first to denigrate the skills she was trying to teach. He wouldn't be the last, either. Marl was a big boy, the kind whose lead the other boys would follow. While none of the other students said a word, some of them eyed Marl with admiration that he'd had the courage to voice what many of them were thinking. The rest of the students watched Kith curiously, waiting to see how the teacher would handle this challenge to her authority.

"Even a cooper may need to read and write sometimes, Marl," Kith answered, pus.h.i.+ng a strand of her long, dark hair back behind her ear. "You may need to write down the orders for your suppliers and customers so you can remember them better."

The other students nodded at Kith's example, but Marl snorted derisively. "I'm not going to be a cooper," the boy declared. "Soon as I get enough money to buy a sword, I'm joining a caravan as a guard. I'm going to be an adventurer."

"A swordling without the common spell," Kith muttered sadly.

"What's a swordling?" asked Lisaka, the tavernkeep's daughter.

"What's the common spell?" Marl demanded.

"A swordling is an adventurer's word," Kith explained, "for a novice sell-sword. A mageling is a young mage who hasn't proven herself. The common spell is ... well, actually it's a story I heard from Alias the Sell-Sword."

The children in the cla.s.sroom leaned forward as one. Like all students throughout the Realms, they knew that their teacher could be distracted from the lesson if they encouraged her to reminisce. They were also eager to hear a story about Alias the Sell-Sword. Alias was a famous adventurera"she rescued the halfling bard Olive Ruskettle from the dragon Mistinarperadnacles and slew the mad G.o.d Moandera"twice. Only last year she drove the thieves guild from Westgate. A story about Alias would be wonderful.

"Tell us, please," Lisaka asked.

"Yeah, tell the story," Marl demanded.

Kith shrugged. "I heard Alias tell this story in the village of Serpentsford in Featherdale. The people there were suspicious of all female strangers who pa.s.sed through the town, even a hero like Alias, for the village was plagued by a penanggalan."

"What's that?" asked Jewel Weaver, the youngest student in the cla.s.s.

"It's a female vampire," Marl said with a superior air.

"Not exactly," Kith retorted. "A penanggalan is undead, and it does drink the blood of the living, but there the sim-ilarity ends. A penanggalan appears as an ordinary woman in the daylight, and the sun's rays do not destroy it. But at night its head twists away from its body, trailing a black 'tail', which is all that remains of its stomach and guts. The body lies motionless while the head flies off and hunts for its victims. It prefers the blood of women and girls."

Jewel squealed, and several other students s.h.i.+vered. Even Marl looked a little pale.

"The people of Serpentsford had known enough to cremate the victims of the penanggalan so they would not become undead themselves," Kith explained. "But the villagers were beginning to lose hope that they would ever discover the monster, or even any of her secret lairs, for she was very cunning. Alias told this story to raise their spirits."

"So what's the story?" Marl growled impatiently.

Amused at the boy's attentiveness, Kith smiled ever so slightly. She sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. Marl squirmed with annoyance.

Kith began the tale. "This is a tale of the adventuring party known as the Swanmays. Their members included two swordswomen, Belinda and Myrtle; a pair of rogues, Niom and Shadow; a cleric, Pasil; and a mageling, Kasilith. In the Year of the Worm, the Swanmays wintered in the city of Westgate. Their landlord, a weaver woman, had an apprentice, an orphan girl named Stelly who was thirteen. Stelly and Kasilith, the mageling, became close friends, and Stelly wanted to leave the weaver to join the Swanmays.

"Now, although it was a master's legal obligation, the weaver had not yet taught Stelly to read or write. Belinda, the leader of the Swanmays, wasn't keen on taking responsibility for an illiterate girl whose only skills were with wool, and stealing an apprentice was a crime in Westgate. Yet Belinda liked Stelly. She promised Kasilith that if the mageling taught Stelly to read and write, Belinda would go to the city council, challenge the weaver's claim to Stelly, and pet.i.tion to take Stelly on as an apprentice swordswoman, "During the winter, Kasilith taught Stelly how to read and write her letters. Stelly believed what Kasilith was teaching her was actually magic; it was so awesome to the girl that scribbles on paper could mean something. Kasilith joked that if it was magic, it was the most common spell in the Realms.

"That same winter a penanggalan began to prey on the women of Westgate. Neither the city watch nor any of the adventurers inhabiting the town could discover the creature's lair. In life, the monster had been a n.o.blewoman and her family and their power helped to hide her. By chance or fate, the undead n.o.blewoman came into Stellas master's shop to have a tear in her cloak repaired and decided to make the weaver her next victim. Explaining she could not call for the cloak until later that evening, the penanggalan made arrangements to meet the weaver after the shop closed.

"A little while later, the weaver learned of Belinda's plan to take Stelly from her. Angrily, the weaver ordered Stelly to repair the n.o.blewoman's cloak, then locked the girl in the workroom. Stelly could hear her master ordering the Swanmays out of her house, then barring the door.

"After crying for a while over her lost chance, Stelly went back to her work. In the pocket of the n.o.blewoman's cloak, the girl discovered an expensive locket engraved with a name. Since Stelly could now read, she recognized the name belonged to a girl who had already fallen prey to the penanggalan. Stelly shouted for her master, but the weaver, thinking the girl was just throwing a tantrum, ignored her cries. Much later in the evening the apprentice heard her master unbar the door to the house and then cry out once in fear. The penanggalan had come for the weaver in her true form.

"Locked in the workroom, Stelly could make out the weaver's moans and the sound of the beast slurping up her life's blood. Stelly cowered silently in fear until she became unconscious.

"In the morning the penanggalan, once again in human form, unlocked the workroom door to retrieve her cloak. Pretending concern for the apprentice, the undead n.o.blewoman promised to return and free Stelly after dark. Stelly hid her fear and her knowledge of the woman's true nature. Knowing the penanggalan intended to return after dark to kill her as it must certainly have killed the weaver, Stelly conceived a desperate stratagem. Across the back of the monster's cloak she scrawled 'pnngalin' with a piece of chalk, then folded the cloak carefully so her repair work showed but her markings did not. The n.o.blewoman nodded with satisfaction at the repairs and allowed Stelly to set the cloak about her shoulders. Then the woman left the workroom, locking the apprentice back in. It was the last Stelly ever saw of her."

"Because people spotted the letters . . . and killed the penanggalan," Jewel said excitedly.

"That is how Alias's story ended," Kith said with a nod. "Reading and writing, the common spell, saved Stelly's life."

"Is that all?" Marl asked, obviously not pleased with the tale.

"No, that's not all," Kith retorted, her voice suddenly deeper and more commanding. "The ending Alias gave the tale was a lie."

The students' eyes widened in surprise.

"But why would Alias lie?" Lisaka asked.

Kith shrugged. "She learned the tale from her father, the bard Finder Wyvernspur, and that is how he told it to her. Bards are notorious for manipulating the facts for their own purposes. But I know it was not the tale's true ending. I was staying at the inn in Serpentsford when Alias told the story," Kith explained, "and when she finished a woman in the audience accused her of lying and slapped her."

The students gasped, even Marl.

"The woman had been the Swanmay mageling Kasilith," the teacher explained. "She was only twenty-seven, but she looked fifty at least. She told Alias and the villagers the story's true ending."

"Which was?" Marl prompted.

"Kasilith was supposed to teach Stelly to read and write," Kith said, her voice laden with bitterness, "but instead the two girls spent the winter playing frivolous games with magic and toy swords and their hair and dresses. When Stelly found the locket in the penang-galan's cloak she couldn't read it. The apprentice had no way of discovering that the n.o.blewoman was the penanggalan, and even if she had suspected anything upon hearing the weaver cry out that night, the girl did not know enough of her letters to write anything on the back of the monster's cloak. The next night the n.o.blewoman returned to free Stelly. She freed her from her life, by draining all the blood from her body."

"Oh, no," Jewel whispered.

"Oh, yes," Kith replied.

"Did they ever catch the penanggalan?" asked Todd, the baker's son. "Wait a minute!" the boy exclaimed. Til bet it was the same penanggalan in Westgate that was in Ser-pentsford. Kasilith was still hunting her to avenge Stelly's death, wasn't she?"

"That is what she told Alias and her companion, Drag-onbait," Kith answered.

"So, did they catch the penanggalan?" Marl asked.

Kith continued. "Alias had a shard of the finder's stone, an old broken artifact. If you held the stone and had a clear picture of someone or something, the shard sent out a beacon of light in the direction of whomever or whatever you wanted to find. Kasilith said she'd seen the penang-galan's human body once, so Alias gave her the stone. Its light led them to a lair hidden underground, where the penanggalan's torso lay on a bier of fresh pine branches. The monster's head was not there; it would return before dawn, but now it was off hunting.

"With an exalted air, Kasilith used her magic to burn the body. Without its torso the penanggalan would not be able to hide its true nature again. If the head was struck by the sunlight and did not return to its torso within a few hours, it would rot, so the penanggalan would not be able to travel in the daylight anymore, either. The adventurers hid themselves and waited for the penanggalan's head to return."

"And did it?" Marl asked. He sat on the edge of his seat.

Kith shook her head.

"Then what happened?" Jewel prompted.

"Alias and Dragonbait and the villagers searched everywhere. For days and nights they looked for the penanggalan or its remains. They found no other secret lairs, nor did they find any other victims of the penanggalan. They hoped that the creature had been struck by sunlight and had rotted, but Alias would not give up the hunt until she had positive proof the penanggalan was dead.

"Kasilith did give up, though. She was just about to leave the village when a great snowstorm came down from the northeast. Travel in any direction outside the vale was impossible for nearly a week, and so she remained. The mage grew remote and haggard in appearance. The snowstorm broke, but by then Kasilith was so ill she was too weak to leave her bed. Her traveling companion, a pretty foundling girl called Jilly, remained at her bedside.

"Then one night, just as Alias and her companion Dragonbait were about to leave the inn for the hunt, Dragonbait turned about and hissed. Now, Dragonbait came from a strange race of lizard creatures called sauri-als, but really they're no different from you and me. Dragonbait was a paladin, a champion of the G.o.d of justice, and just like a human paladin he could sense the presence of evil. He dashed up to Kasilith's room with Alias hot on his heels. The pair smashed open the door.

"Something lay on Kasilith's chest, nuzzling at her neck. For a moment Alias mistook it for a sleeping toddler. It had silky strawberry blond hair, which Kasilith stroked with one hand. The mage's other hand was wrapped around what appeared to be a child's arm. Then the innkeep came to the door with a lantern, and Alias could see the thing lying on Kasilith was a penanggalan. It was lapping at the blood that oozed from two wounds on the mage's throat, and a glistening black tail attached to the fair head writhed like a snake beneath the mage's hand.

"The innkeep dropped the lantern and fled. Alias gagged in spite of herself, and the penanggalan raised its head and hissed. It had the face of Kasilith's traveling companion, Jilly. Jilly's headless torso lay on the bed beside the mage. The monster rose from the bed, its eyes glowing red, blood gurgling down its throat. In a raspy voice it called out its victim's name and flew toward the window, but its escape was blocked by the saurial paladin and his magically flaming sword. Alias slammed the door shut, trapping the monster in the room with its victim and the two adventurers.

"The penanggalan could fly, but the room's ceiling was low, and Alias's sword was long. She pressed the monster into a corner and was just about to deliver a killing blow when her back exploded with the pain of five magical darts sinking into her flesh. Alias whirled around in surprise. Her eyes widened in shock as she discovered it was Kasilith who'd just attacked her. The mage was not just the penanggalan's victim; she was protecting the undead beast as well.

"Dragonbait threw himself on Kasilith, preventing her from casting any more magic, but the penanggalan, taking advantage of Alias's diverted attention, had turned on its attacker with a vengeance. It swooped down upon the swordswoman and lashed its tail about her neck. Alias flailed her sword awkwardly over her head while she tugged at the creature's tail to keep it from choking her. The tail felt slimy, like a decaying piece of meat, and it stunk of curdling blood. Realizing she hadn't long before the monster crushed her windpipe, Alias tried a desperate measure. She dropped her sword and s.n.a.t.c.hed her dagger from her boot sheath.

"A second later she'd slashed the penanggalan along the length of its tail. Hot blood gushed down on her, momentarily obscuring her vision. The penanggalan sank its teeth into her cheek. Dropping her dagger, Alias grabbed the hair at the monster's temples and ripped it from her, smas.h.i.+ng it into the wall over and over, until she had crushed its skull. The tail about her throat went limp and slid from her. Alias dropped the monster on the floor and, retrieving her sword, cleaved its head in two.

"An inky cloud rose from the monstrous head, shrank to a pinpoint of blackness, then vanished. From the bed, Kasilith sobbed out, 'Stelly,' and Alias realized what must have happened."

Kith paused in her story and hung her head for a moment. She breathed in deeply and let her breath out slowly.

"Jilly was Stelly," Todd cried out. "No one had cremated Stelly's body," the boy speculated, "so she became a penanggalan. But what about the other penanggalan? The one whose body Kasilith destroyed?" the boy asked. "Was that the one that killed Stelly?"

Kith shook her head. "No, the Swanmays did finally find and destroy that one. There was no other penanggalan. Kasilith created an illusion of the body and destroyed it so Alias would think the monster was dead and would go away."

"But Alias was too thorough a hunter, and didn't leave," Marl noted.

"And when Kasilith and Stelly were trapped in Ser-pentsford by the snow, Stelly had to feed on Kasilith so she wouldn't get caught," Todd added.

"And Kasilith helped Stelly even though she was a penanggalan because she was her friend," Lisaka said.

"A penanggalan isn't the person she was in life. It's just an evil life-force animating her body that knows what she knew," Marl argued. "Right?"

"That's true," Kith said softly.

"But Kasilith didn't know that, did she?" Jewel asked.

"She knew," Kith replied.

"The penanggalan probably hypnotized her into being its slave," Marl said.

Kith shook her head. "No. Kasilith served it willingly. You see, she felt so guilty that Stelly had died because she hadn't taught her to read. So she thought she deserved nothing better for the rest of her life than to serve as the slave to evil because she'd done an evil thing."

"Then what happened to her?" Jewel asked anxiously.

Kith sighed. "Well, she shrieked and cried and ranted and raved for a while. She swore she would never forgive Alias and Dragonbait for freeing her from the penang-galan's enslavement. Still, they attended to her while she was recovering from the penanggalan's wounds."

"More than she deserved," Marl muttered.

"True," Kith agreed. "Alias told the mage that Finder Wyvernspur had told her so much about Kasilith that she felt she was her friend and would not leave her until she was healed. Kasilith swore she had never met Finder Wyvernspur, but Alias stayed anyway. Finally, one day, something Dragonbait the paladin said made her change her mind about how she felt and about what she should do with her life."

"What did he say?" Jewel asked.

"He told Kasilith that the G.o.d of justice abhors punishment for punishment's sake. That we have to find a way to atone for the evil we do, and that we cannot atone for evil with evil, but only with good. He suggested she go out and teach other children who needed to learn to read and write. That way she would honor Stelly's true spirit and maybe bring peace to her own spirit. And that's just what she did."

"So she became a teacher like you?" Jewel asked.

"She became a teacher like me," Kith answered. "She teaches the common spell."

Marl the cooper's son stayed in school another two years before he finally bought his own sword and joined a caravan as a swordling. By then Kith Lias had taught him to read and write the names of every fell creature he might encounter in the Realms and had moved to another dale to teach another village's children. It was during Marl's off-duty hours that the other caravan guards taught him the game anagrams. After that, the cooper's son spent even more time wondering about the mage Kasilith and the teacher Kith Lias.

THE FIRST MOONWELL.

Douglas Niles

The G.o.ddess existed deep within the coc.o.o.n of bedrock, an eternal being, formed of stone and silt and fire, her body blanketed by the depths of a vast and trackless sea. In the way of immortals, she had little awareness of the steady progression of ages, the measured pulse of time. Only gradually, over the course of countless eons, did she become aware that around and above her the ocean came to host an abundance of life. She knew the presence of this vitality in all the forms that thrived and grew; from the beginning she understood that life, even in its simplest and most transient forms, was good.

Deep waters washed her body, and the volcanic fires of her blood swelled, seeking release. She was a living thing, and thus she grew. Her being expanded, rising slowly from the depths of the ocean, over millennia spilling along trench and seabed, pressing deliberately, forcefully upward. Over the course of ages, her skin, the floor of the sea, pushed through the realm of black and indigo and blue, toward s.h.i.+mmering reaches of aquamarine and a warmth that was very different from the hot pulse of lava that measured her own steady heartbeat.

Life in many forms quickened around her, first in the manner of simple things, later in larger and more elaborate shapes. Animation teemed in the waters that cloaked and cooled her body. Gashes opened continually in the rocky flesh of her body, and her blood of molten rock touched the chill waters in spuming explosions of steam.

Amid these hissing eruptions, she sensed great forms circling, swimming near, breathing the chill, dark sea. These beings of fin and tentacle, of scale and gill, gathered to the warmth of the earthmother's woundsa"wounds that caused no pain, but instead gave her the means to expand, to strive ever higher through the brightening waters of the sea.

And, finally, in the life that gathered to her bosom, she sensed great creatures of heartbeat and warm blood. These mighty denizens swam like fish, but were cloaked in slick skin rather than scales, and rose through the sea to drink of the air that filled the void above. Mothers nursed their young, much like the G.o.ddess nourished her children and her thriving sea. Most importantly, in these latter arrivals the G.o.ddess sensed the awakenings of mind, of thought and intelligence.

Unaware of millennia pa.s.sing, feeling the coolness of the sea against the rising pressure of her rock-bound body, the physical form of the G.o.ddess continued to expand. At last, a portion of her being rose above the storm-tossed ocean to feel a new kind of warmth, a radiance that descended from the sky. Periodically this heat was masked beneath a blanket of chilly powder, but the frosty layer yielded itself in a regular pattern to more warmth, to soothing waters that bathed the flesh of the G.o.ddess, and more of the golden rays shedding steadily downward from the sky.

The flesh of the G.o.ddess cooled, weathered by exposure to sky. New and different forms of life took root upon her; beings that dwelled in the sea of air turned faces upward to the clouds. Many did not walk or swim, but fixed themselves to the ground, extended lofty boughs upward, creating verdant bowers across the breadth of the land. The growth of these tall and mighty trees, like all forms of life, was pleasing to the G.o.ddess. She sensed the fruition and waning of the forests that layered her skin, knew the cooling and warming of seasons with greater acuity than ever before.

It was this awareness that, at last, gave to the earth-mother a true sense of pa.s.sing time. She knew seasons, and in the course of changing climes she learned the pattern of a year. She came to measure time as a man might count his own breaths or heartbeats, though to the G.o.ddess each heartbeat was a season, each breath the cycle of the annum. As the years pa.s.sed by the tens and hundreds and thousands, she grew more vibrant, stronger, and more aware.

The hot blood of earlier eons cooled further; the eruptions from the sea ultimately were capped by solid stone. That firm bedrock, where it jutted above the waves, was layered everywhere in forest, meadow, glade and moor. Seas and lakes intermixed with the land, keeping the G.o.ddess always cool, both fresh waters and brine nurturing the growing populations of living creatures.

Still the G.o.ddess maintained communion with the beings of warm blood dwelling in the depths, who swam to the surface and returned, sharing their mind-images of a vast dome of sky, of the sweet kiss of a sea breeze and the billowing majesty of lofty clouds. Her favorite of these sea creatures was one who had been nourished at her breast from time immemorial, feeding upon the kelp and plankton that gathered to her warm emissions, slumbering for decades at a time in her embrace. She came to know him as the Leviathan, the first of her children.

He was a mighty whale, greater than any other fish or mammal that swam in these seas. His soul was gentle, his mind observant, keen and patienta"as only one who has lived for centuries can know patience. Great lungs filled his powerful chest, and he knew life with a rhythm that the G.o.ddess could understand. Sometimes he took a breath of air and settled into the depths, remaining there for a pa.s.sage of several heartbeats by the reckoning of the G.o.ddessa"a time of years in the more frenetic pace of the other warm-blooded creatures.

In long, silent communication with the G.o.ddess who was his mother, the Leviathan lay in a deep trench on the bottom of the sea, sensing the lingering warmth of her fiery blood as it pulsed and ebbed below the bedrock of the ocean floor. During these times, the great whale pa.s.sed images he had beheld above the waves, pictures of growing verdancy among the earthmother's many islands, of the teeming array of creatures swarming not only sea and land, but now even flocking in the skies.

And he shared, too, his memories of clouds. These more than anything else stoked the fires of the earthmother's imagination, brought wonder to her heart, and caused curiosity to germinate in her being.

As she communed with the Leviathan, sharing his memories of the things he had beheld, she began to sense a thing about herself: The G.o.ddess, unlike so many of the creatures that dwelled upon her flesh, was utterly blind. She lacked any window, any sense through which she could view the world of life flouris.h.i.+ng upon her physical form.

The only visual pictures that she knew came from the memory of the great whale, and these were pale and vaporous imitations of the real thing. The G.o.ddess wanted to see for herself the sky of cloud and rain and sun, to know the animals that teemed among her forests and glades, the trees that sank their roots so deeply into her flesh.