Fiddler Fair (anthology)

“Have I ever said differently?” Aurens traded him look for ironic look.

“I heard what happened before the battle.” Aurens, they said, had ridden his snow-white stallion before them all. “In whose name do you ride?” he had called. “Like a trumpet,” Kirkbride’s informant had told him, as awed as if he had spoken of the Archangel Gabriel.

And the answer, every man joined in one roar of response. “In the name of Allah, and of Aurens.”

Aurens only looked amused. “Ride with me to Baghdad.” This had less the sound of a request than a command. “Ride with me to Yemen. Help me shape the world.” Again, the touch of humor, softening it all. “Or at least, so much of it as we can. Inshallah. I have Stirling, I have some others, I should like you.”

Kirkbride weighed the possibilities, the gains, the losses. Then weighed them against the intangible; the fire in the eyes, the look of eagles.

Then, once again, he looked Aurens full in the eyes; was caught in the blue fire of them, and felt that fire catch hold in his soul, outweighing any other thoughts or considerations.

Slowly, knowing that he wagered all on a single cast of the dice, he drew himself up to attention. Then he saluted; slowly, gravely, to the approval of every one of the robed men in that room.

“To Baghdad, and Yemen, Aurens,” he said. “Inshallah.”

Balance

This story first appeared in Fantasy Book magazine; it was later combined with the following story, “Dragon’s Teeth,” and stories by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Jennifer Roberson for a volume originally called Bardic Voices, later published by DAW as Spell Singers.

Martis is very close to being a soul-sister to Tarma and Kethry.

“You’re my bodyguard?”

The swordsman standing in the door to Martis’ cluttered quarters blinked in startled surprise. He’d been warned that the sorceress was not easy to work with, but he hadn’t expected her to be quite so rude. He tried not to stare at the tall, disheveled mage who stood, hands on hips, amid the wreckage she’d made of her own quarters. The woman’s square features, made harsher by nervous tension, reflected her impatience as the mercenary groped for the proper response to make.

Martis was a little embarrassed by her own ill-manners, but really, this—child—must surely be aware that his appearance was hardly likely to ­invoke any confidence in his fighting ability!

For one thing, he was slim and undersized; he didn’t even boast the inches Martis had. For another, the way he dressed was absurd; almost is if he were a dancer got up as a swordsman for some theatrical production. He was too clean, too fastidious; that costume wasn’t even the least worn-looking—and silk, for Kevreth’s sake! Blue- green silk at that! He carried two swords, and whoever had heard of anyone able to use two swords at once outside of a legend? His light brown hair was worn longer than any other fighter Martis had ever seen—too long, Martis thought with disapproval, and likely to get in the way despite the headband he wore to keep it out of his eyes. He even moved more like a dancer than a fighter.

This was supposed to guard her back? It looked more like she’d be guarding him. It was difficult to imagine anything that looked less like a warrior.

“The Guard-serjant did send this one for that purpose, Mage-lady, but since this one does not please, he shall return that another may be assigned.”

Before Martis could say anything to stop him, he had whirled about and vanished from the doorway without a sound. Martis sighed in exasperation and turned back to her packing. At this moment in time she was not about to start worrying about the tender feelings of a hire-sword!

She hadn’t gotten much farther along when she was interrupted again—this time by a bestial roar from the bottom of the stair.

“MARTIS!” the walls shook with each step as Trebenth, Guard-serjant to the Mage’s Guild, climbed the staircase to Martis’ rooms. Most floors and stairs in the Guild-hold shook when Trebenth was about. He was anything but fat—but compared to the lean mages he worked for, he was just so—massive. Outside of the Guards’ quarters, most of the Guild-hold wasn’t designed to cope with his bulk. Martis could hear him rumbling under his breath as he ascended; the far-off mutterings of a volcano soon to erupt. She flinched and steeled herself for the inevitable outburst.

He practically filled the doorframe; as he glared at Martis, she half expected steam to shoot from his nostrils. It didn’t help that he looked like a volcano, dressed in Mage-hireling red, from his tunic to his boots; it matched the red of his hair and beard, and the angry flush suffusing his features. “Martis, what in the name of the Seven is your problem?”

“My problem, as you call it, is the fact that I need a bodyguard, not a temple dancer!” Martis matched him, glare for glare, her flat gray eyes mirroring his impatience. “What are you trying to push on me, Ben? Zaila’s toenails, if it weren’t for the fact that Guild law prevents a mage from carrying weapons, I’d take sword myself rather than trust my safety to that toy!”

“Dammit, Martis, you’ve complained about every guard I’ve ever assigned to you! This one was too sullen, that one was too talkative, t’other one snored at night—” he snorted contemptuously. “Mother of the Gods, Martis, snored?”

“You ought to know by now that a mage needs undisturbed sleep more than food—besides, anyone stalking us would have been able to locate our campsite by ear alone!” she replied, pushing a lock of blond hair—just beginning to show signs of gray—out of her eyes. The gesture showed both her annoyance and her impatience; and pulling her robe a bit straighter could not conceal the fact that her hands trembled a little.