The life of a mercenary magician is fraught with adventure... always remembering that, in the old definition, adventure is what happens when things go wrong, especially in the field of magic.
This adventure befell, then, early in Lythande’s career—time is irrelevant in the career of a magician (for Lythande has lived at least three ordinary lifetimes)—but let us say it took place in her first lifetime, soon after the Blue Star had appeared between her brows.
Lythande, at the time of this adventure, was in the city of Old Gandrin, and to her lodging, by night, there came, then, a lady, wrapped in a dark cloak, who looked upon the magician and said, with an air of hostility which Lythande did not understand, “Are you the great magician Lythande?”
“I am Lythande,” said the magician.
This befell soon after Lythande had assumed her male disguise, and she was still lacking in some of its refinements, so the woman’s look of scorn worked on her sorely when she said, “I came here without my bodyguards.”
“You have no need to fear me, Lady,” Lythande said.
“I wish this visit to remain forever secret,” she said.
“It will not be told by me, Lady,” Lythande said.
“Still,” said the lady, “you will swear an oath never to reveal this visit; you will swear an oath to be silent even though I myself should implore you to speak.”
“If you wish, I will swear,” said Lythande. “Yet your majesty should consider well; for even I have wished that time should run backward and my words be unspoken.”
“Be silent,” commanded the Queen, for it was she. “Do you dare to compare your resolve with my own? I have thought long and carefully before seeking you out. I need your services because, though much magic is known to me, I have not the art of summoning demons. But first you shall swear.”
“I will swear it if you wish,” Lythande repeated. “But, as I said, there are many evil chances in the world, and it may well be that your majesty has not reckoned upon the malice of the demon kind, for they will use your own words to destroy you.”
“Be silent,” repeated the Queen, an aging woman with the remains of really remarkable beauty. “I know of you, Lythande; you too have secrets which you do not wish spoken aloud; for instance....”
“If you wish, I will swear,” said Lythande; and then and there she bound herself with a great oath that while time ran and the twin suns stood in the heavens, she would not speak, no matter who, even the Queen herself, should bid her to do so. Nor would she reveal, by glance or by hint or by any other means whatever, that she had so much as looked upon the Queen’s face. “So be it; it is done,” said Lythande. “But I implore your majesty—for there are many evil chances in the world, and it may come that you should wish that time should run backward and your request be unspoken—not to ask this. I cannot make time to run backward, or your majesty—”
“You quibble with me, Lythande, and that I will not have; summon now the demon, for I would that time should indeed run backward and restore to me that beauty I have lost, for I would once again have all men at my feet.”
“I feared that,” Lythande said, “and I implore your majesty not to ask this; for your majesty has not reckoned with the malice of the demon kind indeed; they will twist your words, and use your own request to destroy you.
“Do you think you know more of magic than I?” the Queen asked haughtily. “Or can you restore to me my lost beauty?”
“Lady, I cannot; the gods themselves have seen fit to deprive you of youth and of that beauty which comes from youth alone. Yet, there is a beauty which comes of age and wisdom, and to that end I may serve you.” She was still too unpracticed in the ways of a courtier to say that time had in no way affected the lady’s beauty, and the Queen scowled. Lythande found it politic to say, “You are beautiful indeed, my lady. Yet, if you will be guided by me, that beauty alone which comes of age and wisdom is fit for a woman to desire...”
“Be silent,” repeated the Queen, “lest I lose patience and when I am done, bid the demon to rid me of you. For I do indeed desire my lost youth and beauty.”
“Be it so,” said Lythande. “Never name that well from which you will not drink. And now...”
Lythande thereupon lighted a certain incense, inscribed a magical circle and desired the Queen to disrobe and take her place within it. Then she performed the required chants and circumambulations, the air in the room first clouded, then swirled and grew opaque, and within the circle there materialized a singularly ugly demon.
It is done,” said Lythande. “The demon is here to serve you. Yet I implore your majesty to beware of what words you use to ask your boon.”
“Not a word,” commanded the Queen, making a certain gesture; at which the demon said, wincing, “I am here to serve you.”
“I have pondered this long and well,” said the Queen. “Bid time to return; make me as beautiful as I ever was, place me at the moment of my greatest beauty, with all of my life before me.”
“So be it,” said the demon and gestured, and the elderly frame of the Queen began to waver a little; then there was a great blaze of light, and where the body of the old woman had been a beautiful girl baby lay unswaddled upon the hearth.
Lythande said, “That is not what she asked.”
“How can you say so?” growled the demon. “The moment of her greatest beauty is, after all, a matter of opinion, and she cannot say she has not all her life before her.”
“True,” said Lythande.
“Dismiss me,” said the demon. Lythande gestured; the demon vanished in a blaze of light.
The Queen was venting her rage and frustration in screams, but as she had not yet learned to talk; she could only cry, as babies do. Lythande, in whose life there was no room for an infant, swathed her in a cloak, and carried her to one of the pious sisterhoods whose business it was to care for the unwanted babes of the city.
Gandrin was all agog with the disappearance of the Queen, but when they inquired of Lythande whether she knew anything of it, Lythande was of course forced by the oath she had sworn to say nothing. Yet she found it politic to leave Old Gandrin and did not return there for many years.
As for the Queen, she had not forgotten her powers and as soon as she learned to talk, she tried to claim them; but it is well known that babes sometimes say such things and that unregarded orphans claim to be queens; so no one paid any attention to her.
And in time she forgot all about it, as children do.