If you missed the last one…
Sword & Sorcery Stories You Might Have Missed XI is all about the 1980s. Here are five stories from 1981 to 1985 that you may want to check out. The topper for this post is by Ken Kelly, an artist who I think in many ways typifies the 1980s in the same way his uncle-in-law, Frank Frazetta did the 1970s.
Sword & Sorcery in each decade had a different status. In the 1930s it was invented. In the 1940s it was snatched by a few new writers and expanded. In the 1950s it almost died out but received the first hard cover volumes. In the 1960s it exploded after the publication of The Lord of the Rings in paperback. In the 1970s, it expanded again as fans wanted more, especially novels. By the 1980s the shine is off the apple (after the Conan films and imitators) and many writers are moving away from overt S&S. It is a decade where the gaming magazines like The Dragon published short fiction. By the 1990s, Sword & Sorcery would be a dirty word.
So enjoy these tales from the 1980s. They don’t have the raw enthusiasm of the earlier decades. What they do have his polish and a sincere desire to move beyond thud-and-blunder.
Parting Gifts
“Parting Gifts” by Diane Duane in Flashing Swords #5: Demons and Daggers (1981) was a beginning for the author as it was the end for the editor. Lin Carter had been doing the Flashing Swords anthologies since 1973. This was the last of the original FS books, though Robert M. Price would revive it in 2019. The original premise of the series was to publish original S&S novella (15,000 words or so).
“Parting Gits” has for its hero the fifty-year-old servant of the Goddess, Sirronde, who has a dream in which the Maiden (the younger avatar of the three-spirited Mother Goddess) sends her on a journey.
This leads her on a quest to face The Shadow, the male aspect of nature, that rides with a string of damned hunters until New Year’s Day. Along the way to faraway parts Sirronde finds a four month-old kitten that she adopts and then a storyteller named Tav in an inn. This young man claims to have fought in exotic adventures but his sword has never seen battle.
The three head into the wilderness on skis. They are attacked by an ice elemental. (This is the scene Richard Corben chose for the cover illo, though he oddly changed the skis to snowshoes.) Sirronde uses scepter to channel her Light to defeat the beast. Tav admits he has no experience with monsters. The sword was stolen from his father, who abused him.
Next the trio encounter the Dark One and his hunters. The only way to avoid death is for Sirronde to demand guestright on the monster. The Shadow invites them to dine with him at the top of a mountain. Once there, Sirronde has to waste some of her power blasting through a wall to gain entrance. The wise woman warns Tav that they must not lie. If they speak falsely, the Shadow wins immediately.
The Shadow offers food among the ghosts who dine along tables. The Dark One tries to poison them, but the wise woman scolds him. Sirronde strings out the meal (now wholesome food) as long as she can, for if they see the light of New Year’s Day, they will have won their lives. It is Tav’s turn to help. He tells tale after tale (all in which humans defeat the Shadow) until his voice gives us out.
Finally, the Shadow challenges them to a contest of wills. Each guest must face their own test, and if any one of them fails, then they all are forfeit. For Sirronde this is a contest of Light, her power against his darkness. The Shadow is so strong, the only way Sirronde can win is to use up the energy she had been saving for her old age. Tav’s contest is simpler, a challenge to tell the truth. The Shadow asks about his sword. The dark voice tempts Tav to lie, to say the sword is his. Instead he tells the truth, that the sword is his father’s and that he stole it. The kitten’s contest is purely physical. The Shadow becomes a gigantic tiger. The kitten leaps into his face, a surprise tactic he learned from Sirronde.
In that moment of victory, Sirronde tells Tav to strike with the sword, for it is a virgin blade, one that has taken no lives. The Shadow is defeated (It can never die but has been struck down for now.) and the three survive to see the dawn’s light. For Sirronde, this is momentary, as her battle has sapped her strength. Before she dies, she tells Tav to take the kitten and go live in her home, something he has never had.
Diane Duane wrote a prequel to “Parting Gifts” for Dragon Magazine, February 1999. (There were whispers of a third tale to be written.) Both of the Sirrone stories belong to a universe that includes her first novel, The Door Into Fire (1979) that Carter praises highly. Back in 1981, Duane was a newcomer with a few heroic fantasy stories to her name. Today she is well known as the author of the Young Wizards series as well as three stories for the original Thieves’ World series. Both Duane and her husband, Peter Morwood (another heroic fantasy writer) write movie tie-ins for all the major movie and TV series including Star Trek.
Thurigon Agonistes
“Thurigon Agonistes” by Ardath Mayhar (Weirdbook 17, 1983) was reprinted in Robert Adams’ Barbarians (1986). Thurigon Tor En-Ne is the chief of the Council of Wizards in the city of Gereon. He and his fellows have had a vision of a man who is approaching the city. He will bring destruction upon the city so they prepare their magicks to face him. Thurigon watches the barbarian’s approach from a secret, hidden mirror in his chambers.
Now if you’re thinking Thurigon is the hero the next scene clearly tells you otherwise. Bored, the wizard has one of the serving woman, Telessa, bring her young son to his chambers. The wizard’s sex drive has atrophied so he finds pleasure in death. The boy’s body is taken away like so much garbage.
Thurigon has a dream that night after to praying to his god, Jephal. The god appears in the dream and chastises him for using his powers for evil, not good. The god promises that the wizard will cast no more spells.
Three days pass and the wizard receives a knock at his door. The magic-user has arranged for Ankush the man-killer, the biggest and toughest warrior in the realm, to meet him on that day. It is the large black warrior who answers. The barbarian visitor is prepared for muscle and challenges the fighter to a duel.
While fighting, the newcomer introduces himself as a child of a woman the wizard raped and stole the mirror from. Thurigon declares no male child was born from that rape. The barbarian reveals herself to be Skeara Gan Na-Li, daughter of that woman, and one who has trained her whole life for this revenge.
The fight with Ankush goes quickly, with the man-killer wounding the woman on the leg but receiving a morning star in the face. The guard is dead and now Thurigon must fight his own battles. Except his magic has abandoned him. Skeara faces no challenge as the wizard begs for mercy. She realizes death is too easy for this villain, so she reverses all the magic spells that hold back his age. Thurigon collapses under wrinkles and ailments. The magic mirror in his chambers cracks with an explosion. Skeara has her revenge and leaves. The aged and decrepit wizard is powerless to stop Telessa getting her revenge with a dagger.
Mayhar’s revenge tale works well because she makes us wait for that encounter that is central to the tale. We get a great fight scene as well as poetic justice. I knew the name “Ardath Mayhar” for years, from books like Golden Dream, A Fuzzy Odyssey (1983), without actually reading any of her work. This first one has wetted my appetite and I will certainly read more.
A Wine of Heart’s Desire
“A Wine of Heart’s Desire” by Ron Nance is from Tales By Moonlight (1983) edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Perhaps the most surprising feature of this book is the long introduction by Stephen King. The book is a Horror collection but as King points out, there is one S&S tale:
If there was any story I approached with undisguised dread, it was A Wine of Heart’s Desire, by Ron Nance. Sword and sorcery, as delicate a hybrid in its own way as the bonsai tree, has become the home and haven of the worst publishing writers in the fantasy genre, and perhaps in the whole country. The wort of them make Rosemary Rogers look like Shakespeare and Danielle Steel like Francis Bacon. Their untutored lungings bemirsch the memory of the great Robert Howard, who was a terrible writer but an imaginer of fantastic power, and becloud the achievements of Fritz Leiber, whose Fafhrd/Grey Mouser stories are the sword and sorcery subgenre’s finest achievement.
Wow, if that ain’t a kick in the teeth. He goes on to say Nance’s story is “a perfect delight”.
Jesscia Amanda Salmonson explains the presence of an S&S story in the book thusly:
The old WEIRD TALES, the most famous of all horror magazines, was simultaneously a magazine of heroic fantasy. They seem often enough to go hand in hand. Therefore TALES BY MOONLIGHT presents its token heroic fantasy yarn…but one of a different mode than muscle-bound Conan…
That statement is true. Edwin, a slender but talented thief wakes up on board the Windsister, a ship owned by the muscular Zarillian the Sailor-King. Edwin offers to help steal Zarillian’s lover, the Princess Alianora. Zarillion declines the offer because he has a way of winning her fair-and-square. This proves to be an audience with King Zais, where Zarillian showers him with riches then wine. The wine comes from a magic cup he has stolen from Edwin (who lies under the table drunk). The king charges the Sailor with practicing magic without a license and the deal is off. Later Zarillian makes it back to his ship, bleeding but free.
Meanwhile the Princess, who is under guard, spends her time with Motley the Jester. The comedian has received the lash for insulting the King’s guests. The boy and princess switch identities. Alianora is dragged away to be banished in the jester’s place while Motley, the fine actor, imitates the sad princess. When Alianora is thrown out of the castle, she is set upon by thugs with knives.
Edwin slips off the ship in search of the princess. He finds Motley and has a desperate race for the Windsister. The Great Cup is still producing wine, making all who drink from it unable to stop until they pass out. The duo flee guards and waves of wine until they get to the dock. The Windsister is leaving. Edwin paddles like crazy to get aboard where he finds Zarillian with his princess. The knifemen were Zarillian’s men onshore without leave. Edwin learns that “his princess” is Motley.
Salmonson expresses a wish that Ron Nance would write an Edwin and Motley novel so that the publishing industry would recognize the quality of this series. Nance published three more tales after this one and disappeared after 1990. This is too bad since the duo are fun to read about. They remind me a lot of Jack Mackenzie’s Sirtago & Poet but I can vouch for Mr. Mac that he has never heard of these two. My only complaint is the lack of darkness in the tale, which is in a book supposedly about moonlight and evil. “A Wine Heart’s Desire” is a fun romp but no tale of swords against moonlight terror.
The Castle at the World’s End
“The Castle at the World’s End” by Chris Naylor (Fantasy Tales, Summer 1985) is a Dunsanyian piece. The author, like Ron Nance, penned a good one but not much else. (This story was selected for Years’ Best Fantasy 12 edited by Arthur Saha.) Naylor’s work is mostly in the 1980s though he resurfaced around 2002. For more on Sword & Sorcery in Fantasy Tales, go here.
A knight (who is not named) sorrows for he can find no more wars to fight in. He decides to seek adventure elsewhere and rides to a castle that sits on the edge of the flat Earth. He speak with the lord of the castle about what lies beyond but the lord in more interested in reading in his library.
The knight descends the slope of the edge of the world and travels for many days. He begins to despair when he comes upon a village. The villagers know of no wars but have heard they exist in other lands where people are more barbarous.
He rides to another village, one that has been scarred by war. When he speaks to an old man there he hears that the war happened when he was five. Disgusted the knight rides on farther and farther, seeking new battle. Instead he comes to a manor that is vaguely familiar. He enters and recognizes the servant. The man asks if the knight is the manor’s owner who rode away thirty years ago to seek new battles.
The knight flees back to the tower on the edge of the world, to speak with its lord again. The knight draws his sword but the blade falls apart from rust. He falls down and sleeps. The lord of the tower goes back to reading his book.
This tale is a nice parable in the Dunsanyian manner. It actually reminds me more of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Quest of Iranon”, a Dunsanyian piece done by the Horror master in his early years. The story was reprinted in Weird Tales after Lovecraft’s death. It is fitting that Fantasy Tales would feature such a tribute story.
The Goblinry of Ais
“The Goblinry of Ais” by Lin Carter was the opening tale in Andre Norton and Robert Adam’s four volume shared world of Ithkar. Magic in Ithkar (1985) along with Emma Bull and Will Shetterly’s Liavek, were the two shared-world anthology series to follow the mega bestselling Thieves’ World. Carter’s tale is a slight thing but not unwelcome in this collection about wanderers and sellers at the annual fair. Norton and Adams created a complex background involving what sound like alien visitors to explain the location and date of the fair. None of that has anything to do with Carter’s tale, which feels like an Unknown Worlds brand of heroic fantasy.
The Lady Ais is an aging beauty who holds plenty of power in Ithkar. She feels this slipping as she gets older. To reverse this, she goes to a wizard who possesses the Black Talisman of Zorome. Inside the necklace are trapped goblins, powerful earth elementals. The owner of the jewel can command wishes from the trapped creatures. The Lady performs a ceremony from the wizard’s instructions. Soon she is talking to a goblin spirit. She commands the creature thus:
“I wish to be in the springtide of youth, my white body fairer than before, the supple grace of my movements even more graceful than they were when I was young.”
As with all deals-with-devil, the Lady of Ais has erred. She is turned into a white serpent. A guardsman comes across her and crushed her under his boot heal. The goblin laughs.
Carter would be back for Ithkar 2 with “Geydelle’s Protective”, a very similar tale about a minor wizard foolish enough to steal from his betters.
Conclusion
These Sword & Sorcery Tales You Might Have Missed from the 1980s share a sophistication that the Conan clones of the 1970s lacked. (I think this is what Stephen King was maligning.) The alpha male mighty-thewed barbarian has been replaced by creatures of real flesh and blood, often women.This is a welcome maturing away from a trend that dominated since the 1930s.
There is another factor at play: role-playing games. For Garner F. Fox and John Jakes, working in the 1960s, but before the rise of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, things were pretty simple: imitate Robert E. Howard. But after 1973 and Gary Gygax, heroic fantasy now had the effects of a game world where stereotypically a warrior, a thief, an elf and a wizard entered dungeons looking for treasure. It was no longer so easy to make your S&S fiction feel like something more than an RPG scenario. This ironically led to The Dragon publishing most of the true S&S fiction in the 1980s and 1990s.
