Oathblood

Tarma and Kethry

An Introduction

Tarma and Kethry were created because heroic fantasy was finally "coming of age," not the least because of people like Marion Zimmer Bradley and her Sword and Sorceress anthologies, but I saw two problems.

The first-most of the stories were about brawny C*n*n types, strong like bull, dumb like ox, iron-thewed and not something you'd invite to a nice restaurant. The remainder were equally divided between the incredibly depressing eternally doomed hero type, and the female counterpart to the C*n*n type. Trouble was, the latter seemed to share her male counterpart's taste in women.

Mind you, I have no personal objection to this, but I thought it would be nice to have at least one token heterosexual female hero. And hey, not every fantasy hero or heroine has to be as highly sexed as most of the then-current crop seemed to be!

So I invented Tarma and Kethry. Tarma is celibate, chaste, and altogether asexual; Kethry isn't, and though she doesn't think with her hormones, she definitely is fond of men.

Two books (three if you count the beginning of By the Sword) and many short stories later, things have changed for the better, insofar as there is now a vast cornucopia of books and stories in heroic fantasy, which incorporate a vast spectrum of heroes and heroines, but I'm still glad I invented Tanna and Kethry. Figuring out ways to get them in trouble and getting them out again has been highly entertaining for all concerned.

This is the very first appearance of Tarma and Kethry, and how they met. I distinctly remember presenting this and a second Tarma and Kethry story to Marion in person. The occasion was just before one of her Fantasy Worlds Festival conventions, and I had volunteered to be "go-fer mom"-I was going to see to it that all her eager young volunteers ate and slept regularly. Which I did, with a hammer, when necessary. But beforehand, Marion had invited me to come to her home, I had already sold her my first professional sale (a Darkover story), and I wanted very much to be accepted into the Sword and Sorceress anthologies. I brought both manuscripts with me-after first asking permission!-and presented them to her with much trepidation.

"I don't know about the first one," I said hesitantly. "It's kind of 'rape and revenge,' and I know you're tired of that." She just waved me off and took possession of the manuscripts.

Lisa Waters (her secretary and protegee) and I were making tea in the kitchen when "Damn you, Misty!" rang out from the living room. Certain that I had somehow offended her, I ran to find out what it was I had done wrong so I could try to make amends.

As it turned out, what I had done was not wrong, but I had presented her with a dilemma. She liked both stories, and wanted both of them, and could only publish one!

Giddily I told her to hang on to the second one; I was certain there would be a Sword and Sorceress IV. Since the volume numbers are now up in the high teens, you can see that I was right. The second story was published in Volume IV, and I later sold two Tarma and Kethry books to DAW. But this is how the two met in the first place.