Free Bradley, Marion Zimmer - SSC 03 by Lythande (v2.1) Page B

whispered, "Be at peace, child. The Goddess
does not condemn. ..." And thought: / would not give a fart in
sulphurous hell for a goddess who would.
                 "My
sword — " the woman groped;
already she found it hard to see. Lythande put the hilt into her fingers.
                 "My
sword — dishonored — " she whispered. "I am Larith. The sword must go — back to her shrine. Take it. Swear — "
                 Larithae! Lythande knew of the shrine of that hidden goddess and of the vow her women
made. She could now understand, though never excuse, the thugs who had attacked
and killed the woman. Larithae were fair game everywhere from the Southern
Waste to Falthot in the Ice Hills. The shrine of the Goddess as Larith lay at
the end of the longest and most dangerous road in the Forbidden Country, and it
was a road Lythande had no reason nor wish to tread. A road, moreover, that by
her own oath she was forbidden, for she might never reveal herself as a woman,
at the cost of the Power that had set the Blue Star between her brows. And only
women sought, or could come to, the shrine of Larith.
                 Firmly,
denying, Lythande shook her head.
                 "My
poor girl, I cannot; I am sworn elsewhere, and serve not your Goddess. Let her
sword remain honorably in your hand. No," she repeated, putting away the
woman's pleading hand, "I cannot, Sister. Let me bind up your wounds, and
you shall take that road yourself another day."
                 She
knew the woman was dying; but it would give her something, Lythande thought, to
occupy her thoughts in death. And if, in secret and in her own heart, she
cursed the impetus that had prompted her to ignore that old survival law of
minding her own business, no hint of it came into the hard but compassionate
face she bent on the dying swordswoman.
                 The
Laritha was silent, smiling faintly beneath Lythande's gentle ministrations;
she let Lythande straighten her twisted limbs, try to stanch the blood that now
had slowed to a trickle. But already her eyes were dulling and glazing. She
caught at Lythande's fingers and whispered, in a voice so thready that only by
Lythande's skill at magic could the words be distinguished, "Take the
sword, Sister. Larith witness I give it to you freely without oath. ..."
                 With
a mental shrug, Lythande whispered, "So be it,
without oath . . . bear witness for me in that dark country, Sister, and hold
me free of it."
                 Pain
flitted over the dulled eyes for the last time.
                 "Go
free — if you can — " the woman whispered ,, and
with her last movement thrust the hilt of the larith sword into
Lythande's palm. Lythande, startled, by pure reflex closed her hand on the
hilt, then abruptly realized what she was doing — rumor
had many tales of larith magic, and Lythande wanted none of their
swords! She let it go and tried to push it back into the woman's hand. But the
fingers had locked in death and would not receive it.
                 Lythande
sighed and laid the woman gently down. Now what was to be done? She had made it
clear that she would not take the sword; one of the few things that was really known about the Larithae was that their shrine was
a shrine of women swordpriestesses, and that no man might touch their magic, on
pain of penalties too dreadful to be imagined. Lythande, Pilgrim Adept, who
had paid more highly for the Blue Star than any other Adept in the history of
the Order, dared not be found anywhere in the light of Keth or her sister Reth
with a sword of Larith in her possession. For the very life of Lythande's magic
depended on this: that she never be known as a woman.
                 The
doom had been just, of course. The shrine of the Blue Star had been forbidden
to women for more centuries than can be counted upon the fingers of both
hands. In all the history