Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

Still, there was nothing he could do about any of this now. The potion had been made and delivered and, in all likelihood, used, and, as he had said, whatever had happened after that had happened, and he could only wait and see what consequences befell. He mixed himself a mild calming elixir, and after a time it took effect, and he went about his business without giving the matter further thought.

The next evening, half an hour or so before the official opening time of the Midnight Market, Ghambivole Zwoll was moodily going over his accounts when he heard a disturbance in the hall outside, shouting and clatter, and then came the hammering of a fist on the door of his shop; and, looking up, he beheld the gaudy figure of the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran gesturing at him through the time-dimmed glass.

The marquis looked furious, and he was brandishing his bared sword in his right hand, swishing it angrily back and forth. Ghambivole Zwoll had never seen anyone brandishing a drawn sword before, let alone one that was being waved threateningly in front of his own beak. It was a dress sword, ornate and absurd, intended only as an ornamental appurtenance—the fad for swordplay in daily life had long ago ended on Majipoor—but its edge looked quite keen, all the same, and Ghambivole Zwoll had no doubt of the damage it could work on the frail tissues of his small body.

He was alone in the shop. The Skandar woman had already finished her nightly chores and gone, and Shostik-Willeron had not yet arrived. What to do? Darken the room, hide under the desk? No. The marquis had already seen him. He would only smash his way in. That would entail even more expense.

“We are not yet open for business, your grace,” said the Vroon through the closed door.

“I know that. I have no time to wait! Let me in.”

Sadly Ghambivole Zwoll said, “As you wish, sir.”

The Marquis Mirl Meldelleran strode into the shop and took up a stance just inside the door. Everything about him radiated anger, anger, anger. The Vroon looked upward at the figure that rose high above him, and made a mild gesture to indicate that he found the bared sword disconcerting.

“The potion,” he said mildly. “It was satisfactory, I trust?”

“Up to a point, yes. But only up to a point.”

The tale came spilling out quickly enough. The lady had trustingly sipped the drink the marquis had put before her, and the marquis had managed even to recite the spell in proper fashion, and the potion had performed its function most admirably: the Lady Alesarda had instantly fallen into a heated passion, the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran had swept her off to bed, and they had passed such a night together as the marquis had never imagined in his most torrid dreams.

Ghambivole Zwoll sensed that there had to be more to the story than that, and indeed there was; for the next night the marquis had returned to Muldemar House, anticipating a renewal of the erotic joys so gloriously inaugurated the night before, only to find himself abruptly, coolly dismissed. The Lady Alesarda had no wish to see him again, not this evening, not the next evening, not any evening at all between now and the end of the universe. The Lady Alesarda requested, via an intermediary, that the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran never so much as look in her direction, should they find themselves ever again in the same social gathering, which was, unfortunately for her, all too likely, considering that they both moved in the same lofty circles among the younger nobility of Castle Mount.

“It was,” said the marquis, smoldering with barely suppressed rage, “the most humiliating experience of my life!”

Ghambivole Zwoll said mildly, “But you came to me seeking, so you said, a night of pleasure with the woman you most desired in all the world. By your own account, my skills have provided you with exactly that.”

“I sought a continuing relationship. I certainly didn’t seek to be spurned after a single night. What am I to think: that when she looked back on our night together, she thought of my embrace as something vile, something loathsome, something that had left her with nothing but black memories that she longed to purge from her mind?”

“I have heard tell that the lady is betrothed to a great prince of Castle Mount,” said the Vroon. “Can it be that when she returned to her proper senses she was smitten by a sense of obligation to her prince? By guilt, by shame, by terrible remorse?”

“I had hoped that her night with me would leave her with no further interest in that other person.”

“As well you might, your grace. But the potion was specifically designed to obtain her surrender on that one occasion when it was administered, and so it did. It would not necessarily have a lingering effect after it had left her body.”

As he spoke the door opened behind the marquis and Shostik-Willeron, arriving for the night, stepped into the shop. The eyes of the Su-Suheris flickered quickly from Ghambivole Zwoll to the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran to the marquis’s unsheathed sword, and a look of terrible dismay crossed his faces. The Vroon signaled to him to be still.

“Literature is full of examples of similar cases,” Ghambivole Zwoll said. “The tale of Lisinamond and Prince Ghorn, for example, in which the prince, after at long last consummating the great desire of his life, discovers that she—”

“Spare me the poetic quotations,” the marquis said. “I don’t regard a single night’s success, followed by icy repudiation the next day, as in any way a fulfillment of your guarantee. I require fuller satisfaction.”

Satisfaction? What did he mean by that? A duel, perhaps? Ghambivole Zwoll, appalled, did not immediately reply. In that moment of silence, Shostik-Willeron stepped forward. “If you will pardon me, your grace,” said the Su-Suheris, “I must point out to you that my partner did not stipulate anything more than the assurance that the potion would secure you the lady’s favors, and it does appear that this was—”

The Marquis Mirl Meldelleran whirled to face him and flicked his sword savagely through the air from side to side before him. “Be quiet, monster, or I’ll cut off your head. Just one of them, you understand. As a special favor I’ll allow you the choice of which it is to be.”

Shostik-Willeron moved into the shadows and said nothing further.

The marquis went on, “To continue: I regard the terms of our agreement as having been breached.”

“A refund, milord, would be very difficult for us to—”

“I’m not interested in a refund. Make me a second potion. A stronger one, much stronger, one that will obliterate all other affections from her mind and bind her to me forever. You make it and I’ll find some way to get it to her and all will be well, and my account with you will be quits. What do you say, wizard? Can you do that?”

The Vroon pondered the question a moment. Shostik-Willeron was right, he knew: Shostik-Willeron had been right all along. They never should have had anything to do with this grimy business. And they should refuse now to continue with it. Like all his kind, he had some slight power of foretelling the future, and the images that came to him by way of such second sight were not encouraging ones. Whether or not the law was on their side, the great lords of Castle Mount certainly were unlikely to be, and if this slippery marquis continued his pursuit of the Lady Alesarda, he would sooner or later bring down the vengeance of those mighty ones not only upon him but upon those who had aided and abetted him in his quest.

On the other hand, that consideration was a relatively abstract one, at least when compared with the sharp and gleaming reality of the sword in the Marquis Mirl Meldelleran’s hand. The great lords of Castle Mount were far away; the sword of the marquis was right here and very close. That alone was incentive enough for the Vroon to plunge ahead with this new task that the marquis required of him, regardless of the obvious riskiness of it.