Notes: Lythande the Pilgrim-Adept is presumably owned by Marion Zimmer Bradley's estate.
This is an adaptation of the canon story "Here There Be Dragons", written for (as far as I know) and published in an anthology about Excalibur. "Adaptation" is not really the right word; I essentially treated the published story as a first draft. I feel weird and a little bad for doing this, but it's not supposed to be disrespectful. The story as it was published included continuity errors within itself, continuity errors with the other Lythande stories (such as claiming that she had never carried a sword), typographical errors, hardly included Excalibur, and seemed to have its theme up in the air until it was done. I recognized the repetition and meandering sort of writing from when I have a general idea and am trying to work it in somehow. What struck me was that there seemed to be very good potential for three completely separate stories there, but they didn't work well together, and it needed editing—this is my attempt to finish one of them.
Here There Be Dragons
When Lythande entered the town, it looked eerie. Pale light from the waning moon spread a thin cold radiance over the fingers of old snow left in the deserted streets of the town. In accordance with her usual custom, Lythande first looked about for an inn or tavern, where she could for the price of a pot of beer, which she never drank, listen to all the gossip, and see if anyone in the village had need of the services of a mercenary magician, or lacking that if she could play for her supper.
There was but one inn, and it looked run down. A weak and yellowish lamplight spilled out the window in which Lythande looked. Inside a bare handful of men and women huddled around an ancient dark wooden bar; a sickly looking fire burned fitfully at the end of the room and cast more shadows than light over them. Lythande swept the room and its dwellers with her eyes and tried to puzzle out what she was seeing. The population seemed all to have been taken from an ancient engraving in a text on witchcraft she had once seen. Men, women, and even a few children all had about them some vague family likeness, something faintly deformed; yet, looking a little more closely, there was no physical deformity. It was at least possible that they all suffered some minor physical or other peculiarity too subtle to be identified by anyone unfamiliar with them and without special knowledge. She wondered then if they suffered some spiritual deformity rather than physical, that she sensed as a general wrongness.
Oh, this was absurd; what was a spiritual deformity anyhow—or was there any such thing? And what gave her the idea that if there was, she could heal it?
Well, it would make more sense to go inside, rather than standing out here in the cold, gawking and having neurotic notions about them.
Lythande hoisted her backpack and the case of light board covered in colored embroidered wools, which contained her lute. She shoved the door open. A blast of heat smote her in the face, smelling of burned meat and the acrid smell of stale beer. Lythande had been hungry; but on smelling the meat in this inn, she felt suddenly that the very thought of food was revolting.
She stepped up to the bar without drawing attention, and asked quietly for a pot of beer. The barman set a large mug before her. He was an odd little gnome of a man with queerly pointed ears who looked, Lythande thought, more like the village idiot than a barkeeper of any sort. Though not so much more so than any of his patrons; he shared with them all that unidentifiable similarity.
"Come far today, stranger?" he asked her in a voice as gritty as the cloth he was wiping glasses with.
"Far enough," Lythande answered politely. She was glad now for the vow which prohibited her from eating or drinking in the sight of any man; she wouldn't have wanted to be tempted to try the beer against her better judgment.
"Stranger, be you a magician?" asked a rough-looking woman seated down the bar with a bowl of the repulsive meat, its gravy staining her fingers and shirt. It seemed that everyone in the room was watching her, despite her attempts to be unobtrusive. She supposed they got little in the way of entertainment here.
"I am, at that," Lythande allowed. There was no use denying it if she had wanted to; her mage robe and the Blue Star that glowed between her brows spoke enough for themselves. She could proclaim herself a mere minstrel and they may accept it, but perhaps she was here for a reason; the universe worked in such ways sometimes. And the place did not lend itself easily to music-making anyway.
"Do you take commissions at a reasonable price then?" the barkeep asked with sharp attention.
"I do, then," Lythande agreed, "but, forgive me if I sound crass—what would you consider a reasonable price? And how can I tell you mine unless I first know the scope of the job?"
"'Ere." The queer little gnome of a man leaned over and drew a curtain which hung, Lythande thought, over a gate to the street outside. But as he drew it aside, Lythande stared—for it led, not to the outside, but to a small window with a view of a flight of steps which came out on a sunlit landscape out of doors; there were glimpses of verdant summer trees at the top, where there should be nothing but moonlit snow—if even there were anyplace to climb to, which there should not have been.
"Just go out yonder and see what's there. Le' me tell you another magician asked thirty silvers—and so I hung the curtain up—an' I can always just draw it closed. It won't bother us ifn's we don't bother it none.
Lythande felt like screaming with laughter. But she only asked soberly, "What would you consider a fair price?"
"Mebbe three silvers, just to walk outside an' see something that probably ain't there?" he said with an unpleasant smile.
"I see that there may be monsters or something worse at the top of those steps," Lythande said carefully. "What if I must come down even faster than I went up? Will I have enough time to come back here and collect enough silvers to do away with a mighty ogre?"
For, she thought, the world behind those stairs might be anywhere—but the only place it was certainly not was outside in the street.
The little gnome behind the bar said "You can leave that there lute; I'll take care of it an' your pack too."
Lythande said only "The three silvers you so generously offered." She was loathe to leave her lute in these people's hands; it was precious to her, though it was not likely to be a treasure to anyone else. But the pathway was narrow and who could know what may be at the top of those stairs; the lute might be damaged, and the pack an encumbrance should she indeed need to flee or fight. Most of what was truly important she carried in the many pockets of the mage robe at any rate; the pack held only such necessities as living and wandering required. She rummaged in the pack and took out her book of spells. "This at least I carry with me. The rest you may keep for the moment; if I do not return some member of my Order will claim pack and lute." There would not, she knew, actually be any Pilgrim-Adept coming for her belongings should she meet her end at the top of these stairs, but it may keep idle hands from exploring her things while she was gone.
"As you wish, sir sorcerer," Bat-Ears conceded, and produced the coins with an expression of pain. She made them vanish into her robe before he could offer to keep them safe for her as well.
"Is it likely that you will not return?" asked a man beside her at the bar with an expression that was inappropriately keen. "Have you had any premonitions? Can you arrange to send me a message from the Other Side? Maybe what's good at the racecourse?"
"What kind of ghoul are you?" Lythande asked in disgust.
"No offense meant," the man answered offensively, "but you magicians—all that bosh about the afterlife, but nothing really useful, like never knowin' what will win at the racecourse, or what's good to sell at the fair—You magicians give me pain." His fellows at the bar sounded their agreement.
I wonder if any of you know what you give me, Lythande thought, but aloud she only made a meaningless conciliatory murmur.
She thrust the spell book into the pocket of the breeches under her mage-robe, and went toward the window and heaved it open. The flight of stairs it opened onto seemed solid enough. Not really giving herself time to think, she set her foot upon the lowest step of the stairs and went up.
There were more stairs than there looked to be. Halfway along the flight of stairs, she felt a curious disorientation, no longer sure she was climbing; might she not, rather, have been descending? And from the sudden warm draught in the air, Lythande knew at least they were no longer underground. Had they ever been?
Abruptly the stairs came to an end, and Lythande came to level ground in a small field of tall grasses dotted with familiar wildflowers. It was pleasantly warm and brightly sunlit like a midsummer's day, but the field was surrounded by tall dense trees and Lythande could see only a little way through the thick forest. She came to a stop, and looked around, wanting to assess this strange country somewhere above and beyond the inn, of which there was no sign. Behind her, the stairs seemed to disappear into a thick mist, and she could not even now see if they went up or down.
If I turned around now and went down—or up—the stairs, would I wind up in that same tavern? she wondered. She would not bet on it, or even that she could, should she want to—and if not for her lute left there, perhaps she would not want to—return to the wretched interior of the inn. At least not by simply turning round and heading back the way she had come, whether it might be up or down. Magic simply did not work that way; and by the prickling of the blue star on her forehead, she knew that powerful magic was somewhere in the forest around her.
What magic it was she could not see, though. The bright and sunlit day seemed pleasant enough, if strange that it should exist at all. There was no sound of birds or wildlife or even insects, but beyond that unnatural stillness and the prickling of the blue star on her brow there was no sign of malignancy. She closed her eyes to focus on her magical senses in a near trance, reaching out to find the direction and nature of the magic in play. She found she could not. Her eyes opened again with a frown. She could sense nothing but the omnipresence of the magic, powerful but formless. Did that mean that it was simply the feel of the realm in which she found herself? Or was it that she could not sense the shape of the magic because she was in the middle of it?
She must know. She spoke the words of a powerful spell that would for a short time negate all magic in the sound of her voice, even her own, gripping the handle of one dagger in case danger found her as she was thus vulnerable.
All at once, as though a veil had been snatched away from her eyes, a burning metallic sun turned the landscape an evil sulphurous yellow. She felt as though there was a dirty film over her eyes. A second sun hung overhead, but these were not the twin suns of her world, Keth and Reth; these were twisted caricatures, sickly imitations of them. A black moon showed its face just above the ragged line of the trees. The trees themselves were stunted and twisted things with limbs grasping for the sky, bearing leaves so jagged and sharp they looked as though they would cut. The grasses around her legs now groped and gripped about her boots, entangling her in place, and the familiar flowers now seemed almost like bulbous hands, drooping toward the earth as they were too heavy for their thin stalks to lift and letting out a putrid scent that hung in the dull air. She made a sound of disgust and drew her right-hand dagger, the one made for the physical dangers of the world, and cut herself free of the grasping plant life, wondering if indeed she were in the familiar world at all or in one of the magical or demonic realms. And, if so, how had she come there, and why? And what were the magical realms doing that they should be at the head of a painted staircase—which oddly she had climbed—or descended—outside a window in an inn?
She thought she should return to the inn, now she saw what was here; go back and tell them what lay behind their curtain, now that she had seen the truth of it. And to think that she had thought she might prefer this place, when she saw only the illusion! But would they do anything, or simply thank her, draw the curtain and let it stay there, out of sight and out of mind? And if she did would she violate her magician's oath to fight the forces of evil wherever they should be found? She did not need the prickling of her brow to tell her that this was a place of evil, and her oath bound her to always fight evil in any place whatever. Even, she wondered, outside the known world?
Yes, she thought, even there. She took gathered her resolve against the overwhelming feeling of wrongness, and stepped into the burning sunlight, which felt terribly hot on her face. The grasses tangled about her feet again until she ripped them free. She felt like turning about, and bolting back up—or was it down?—the stairs.
But she did not. She told herself that she had seen no evil yet, only guessed at an evil so great that while she was under the sway of its magic she could not see it. The place was—must be—evil beyond guessing. And despite the words of the innkeeper her own vows kept her from turning her back on such an evil without at least doing her utmost to fight it.
Was she even equipped to fight it? She had left her lute with the barman and more than once the sound of her lute alone had been sufficient to drive some evil away. Well, it was no good thinking about it; for better or for worse, she had come to this place without her lute, essentially unarmed, and with only her two daggers and the book of spells she had no time to consult she must face it.
Face what? So far she had only seen the wicked color of an alien sun. Maybe she would see nothing else.
Although that sun, she thought instinctively, was evil enough.
Then she recoiled within herself as she recognized the thought as a reaction of emotion, forcing her mind back into cool rationality. This place was playing with her mind, forcing her into a place of instinct and emotion, of fear and disgust with no reason behind it. But she was stronger than that. Just what could be so evil about an alien sun and a sulphur-colored landscape? Was it only that they were different? In some ways it would almost be considered weirdly beautiful.
But that concept was too much for her. Her mind so revolted at the thought of calling that lurid landscape beautiful that she thought she would vomit. With a fierce effort she controlled herself, and brought her rebellious stomach to order. She drew herself fiercely upright and forced herself to take a few steps into the burning alien landscape, fighting the grasses and the heat and smell as they all conspired to hold her in place.
After a few steps she turned about seeking the door where she had entered. There was no sign of any door or exit.
So, she told herself; there may be no return—no obvious return, at least not now.
No! Against that her mind rebelled. She thought, I cannot stay here. There must be a way back; anything else was completely unthinkable. Yet she knew that the unthinkable might well become fact and wanting it to be different would not make any difference at all.
She knew when she forced her mind to rationality instead of revulsion that there was no stairway now likely because there was, in truth, no stairway. There was no exit to this place—nor entrance. The stairway she had climbed, or descended, was a thing of magic, and in casting her spell and removing her own magic she had blinded herself to its existence—or caused it to cease existing. Perhaps it would return when her magic did—or perhaps it would not, but that thought would do her no good, so she could not indulge it yet.
So she must put all her patience to the business of being ready to return, though she was not renowned for her patience and the inaction of waiting rankled at her. She must above all remember where the doorway had been located, and hope that sooner or later she would have a chance to go through it again, even if it was at a dead run being pursued by whatever evil was here.
And from hoping there was nothing there, she began to wish that she would discover something even those people would recognize at once as evil, if only to induce them to pay her for having gone through this experience. Perhaps one of the hand-flowers; but her mind rebelled at the thought of even touching one of them. Words would not be able to capture the hateful nature of this place, and if she attempted to explain it she would be sneered out of town with no more than a beer for her troubles. She guessed that the people in this town would cheat a working woman out of her lawful due if they had the chance, even if they did not know that she was a woman. Some people would enjoy tricking any magician out of his—or her—lawful hire. Over my dead body, she thought, and set herself to take another step forward, intent to explore this place until she could leave it so that at least she could not be accused of having done less than her promised job.
There was a sound in the forest; it sounded like some beast, but no normal beast she could think of. If she had ever thought of what a drowning dragon sounded like, she might have expected it to be something like this, a horrible gargling roar. But that was impossible—or was it? In a place like this, she reflected, a dragon was rather more likely than not. And she was no more unarmed against a dragon than she would have been against a harpy, or roc, or any other nonexistent but unpleasant tangible creature.
And she had had no psychic warnings of any magical beast either. But were her sudden fears of a magical beast some form of warning? Magic sometimes worked that way. She had not let the possibility of dragons cross her mind for years. So why was she thinking of them now? Like an answer somewhere in the burning glow came that same dreadful roaring. It grated along her spine and made her shudder with an unfamiliar dread; Lythande thought that if the doorway had still been there she would have run up—or down—through it at once. She looked back toward where it should be but still it was not there. Again she resolved that above all she must keep track of where it had been, in case there was really a dragon at the source of that sound and she could escape it only by taking to her heels.
Lythande had some experience with were-dragons; she viewed them with a healthy respect and she would not have dallied with one carelessly, but they did not unduly frighten her. A dragon was not like a were-dragon, however; whereas a were-dragon was as intelligent as a human or more so, and could be reasoned with and understood, a dragon was no more than a beast. A magical beast, but a beast all the same, with no mind to speak of and known for their viciousness and hunger. She had never fought one, nor had any wish to do so.
The pricking of the blue star told her that her magic was beginning to return, and the magic to the land around her, though now that she had seen through the land's illusion it seemed that the spell was entirely broken for her; the stunted trees and evil sun remained to her eyes as they truly were, without the relief of their disguise. The prickling of the blue star also told her it was no natural beast but something of magic—like, in fact, a dragon. Well, for that she had a magical dagger, but she thought regretfully that she could have used a sword.
A little track led through the reaching trees and the grasping grasses, and at the very edge of the road as it twisted away through the forest stood a stone about waist high, like an altar or a pedestal. On it was standing another stone, a greenish-black variety she had never seen but the sight of which made her mind queasy; she could feel the oily, slimy texture of it without ever setting her hand on it. It was carved into a sculpture of a beast that could have been a dragon, or an octopus, or a grotesquely misshapen man; her mind refused to look at it closely enough to tell what it truly looked like, but the impression was enough to set her stomach roiling and make her heart leap coldly into her throat.
She stared at it in disbelief, fighting against the instinctive fear to focus her senses normal and magical on the form of the statue so that she could comprehend it. She wearied her mind with the effort before she let herself look away. She knew of such things from old tales whispered in darkness, but that there might be such a creature even in the magical realms strained her belief to the breaking point. Even to a magician, such things did not happen, and yet, unless she wished to deny the evidence of her own eyes, there it unmistakably was. She had blessedly never seen anything like it, not even in a menagerie or an exhibit of exotic beasts, not even in such a display of magical beasts kept by a magician who had a roc and a camelopard. Yet the evidence of her own eyes was undeniable.
At that very moment she heard through the bushes a terrible wet roaring sound, and saw the twisted branches swaying and jerking as if something very large were crashing through the underbrush. The ground beneath her feet reverberated with the steps of some great weight; there was in her sight a brief impression of a shadow that loomed over the top of the trees in the hateful sunlight, and that was enough for her; she grasped the magical left-hand dagger beneath her mage robe, though it seemed paltry defense against such a thing, and ran. If she was to see a dragon—but she was in no hurry to validate her fears. Not even to reassure herself about her own sanity. Perhaps her sanity was the very thing she was protecting in not seeing whatever was there.
But self-preservation could not best curiosity, and she looked back, though she knew she should not. Now she caught a glimpse of a long snakelike neck, unusually high, of a curious leathery green, and somewhere behind it rudimentary wings, and a writhing mass of tentacles around or overlaid on it all. She could not see it properly no matter how she looked, but one thing she could see were the eyes. It had large reptilian eyes which looked almost as if they were on long insectoid stalks. They swiveled and Lythande had the uncanny feeling that they were searching for her in the underbrush. They would find her, and when this creature saw her she would be destroyed. She told herself not to be fanciful, but she could not help herself; the thing inspired such fear as she had not felt in centuries, and she did not know if it was natural or a magical effect, but in the moment it made no difference; she could not fight it. The blue star pulsed with her emotion and the magic of the thing seeking her. She was not eager to try herself against anything so large or terrifying. But, it seemed, she was not to be given the choice. Well, she thought with empty dread, I hoped there would be something fierce enough to justify my fears about evil. That will teach me to be careful what I wish for; like to the puppy who chases a wagon wheel. What would he do if he caught it? What will I do with this dragon?
She could not kill it, she knew with certainty. She could stand against it with all her magic and it might destroy her without even noticing, as she swatted an insect. How many flies had stood thus against her with all their might and meager talents?
They did not pay me to go up against a dragon, she thought, and realized with a shameful relief that she did not have to fight it. There were no words binding her to face this abomination—no job she had sworn to do, only the private magician's vow against evil, and no one would know if she did not. The thought of fleeing from it and willfully abandoning that oath made her sick with shame, but the realization that she could in fact leave it was like a light in the darkness. They had not paid her to face this evil.
She stood hidden from the swivelling eyes, arguing with herself, gripping the handle of her daggers until her hands ached. Especially they did not pay me to kill or dispose of a dragon; they very specifically paid me to go into the world behind their window and see what was there. Just to see it, not to do anything about it. I made it clear that for what they paid I would but go and look if anything was there. They never expected anything would be there and spoke as if, the curtain drawn, they would be quite all right. So Lythande really should do nothing, but go back at once and tell her story. But in order to do that, she must remember where the door was located. Could she find it even now? A new cold fear crept up her spine as she realized that she was somehow disoriented, and she could not remember which direction on the path she had come from—which direction the door away from this terrible world lay in.
As she looked around the beast seemed to sigh out a great wet breath, growl in many throats, and breathe out fire. It caught almost at once in the trees and the crowded underbrush. Her mage robe was normally fire-proof, but she had no wish to test that enchantment against this creature's magic either. By the light of the burning forest, she turned about, and ran, her steps ripping through the grasses and shoving aside the grasping branches. Her strength was greater than that of most men, and without it she would have been held fast, a captive waiting to be burned alive here, or something worse. The furious light of the blue star was all but blinding in her eyes, hiding the lurid landscape from her, and it ached and throbbed in response to the alien magic so that it felt as though it were stabbing through her skull. As she came again to the clearing finally at the end of the track she was stumbling blindly in a panic, groping toward where she thought she had seen the stairs.
They had reappeared again now that her magic had returned, and for that she was grateful. Once inside she almost tumbled down the stairs—they went down after all, she thought—and with great relief through the window into the blessedly cool and dim air of the inn. The angry light of the blue star had died down to almost nothing and her head was blessedly free of the pounding. But it was not completely quiescent.
The little barkeep with bat-ears looked up with a calculating expression on his pinched face, and said, "So, sir magician, back again? What did you find on the other side of those stairs?"
She stood at her pack and untouched beer with her composure restored as though she had never lost it; it would do only harm to reveal in a magician such a human weakness. The fear, she was sure now, was induced by the creature, for she had never panicked such as that even when she was a girl still living as one, long before the blue star of the magician was set between her brows—but even so, she would remember that fear; for now she folded it and put it away in her mind, to be drawn out and examined perhaps when she had more distance and time from it.
"A dragon," she said, "or something like one, breathing fire." Through the curtain still drawn open she nodded, and they could see the fire now licking the tops of the trees beyond the stairs. To her now she could still see the twisted lurid landscape; she wondered suddenly which the barkeep and townspeople had seen. Did they still see the peaceful summer day, or had they seen the alien world when they sent her there?
He looked perturbed. "And did you kill it?"
"No," said Lythande, "I did not; for three silvers I agreed to go into that wood and see what was there. For killing a dragon, my price is substantially higher. And for no reason at all, I got the notion that you grudged the price; you made it clear you paid me only to look and find what was there." The blue star flashed once with a surge of her anger.
"Oh," said Bat-ears. "I believed your magician's oath bound you to destroy evil wherever you found it."
"And so you believed you could get me to kill it for you without payment? By what right do you expect me to destroy any being or creature for your benefit and none of mine?" Even one so evil as that, which I should be obliged to destroy, she thought.
"But it will burn down the forest, breathing fire!"
"That does not bother me," she said. "It is not my forest. If it wishes to burn down its own forest it may do so, and if it bothers you, kill it yourself. Or you may pay a proper fee to have someone destroy it if it bothers you."
His expression said that no such thing was an option he would consider, and he drew the curtain closed again, hiding the alien world and its burning forest at the head of the staircase. No doubt to pull the same trick on the next magician who should come through this forsaken town. Perhaps one that would be better equipped either to deal with the dragon, or to deal with the townspeople.
She picked up the case with her lute and slung it over her shoulder, and without another word she went into the street. She would rather walk all night than stay anywhere near these people. Behind her she began to see through the door a great fire breaking out. It must have spread from the dragon in the woods, she thought, and experienced a rare moment of doubt.
She turned to look back at the inn. Suddenly it buckled and with a great explosion, collapsed inward until there was nothing of it left at all. There was neither sign of fire, nor staircase, nor dragon, nor Bat-Eared barkeeper and spiritually-deformed townspeople where the inn had been.
With all this, she thought, they should not have grudged me a lawful fee. She thought that perhaps her magician's oath was now satisfied after all. She turned away from the inn, and began to walk. Maybe she would reach the next town before the moon set or it began snowing.