“Interesting diversion,” said the high wizard. “I regret I did not have my globe outside to absorb that scene. Unfortunately, we only heard. We were not sufficiently quick to see.”
“A runaway mule,” Torin explained. “Someone must have been exercising it on a woods-trail, and something scared it. Valdart’s stopped it safely.”
“Aye. Animals follow the paths of their emotions. Unlike students.” Talmar nodded and looked back at the skyreaders’ tent.
Torin followed his gaze and saw that some of the shouts were plainly coming from Laderan and Iris. Their tent was distant, and they appeared smaller than statuettes, but Torin could see the apprentice was holding something that glinted, working it back and forth as if trying to fold or to straighten it, and he thought Laderan’s expression was angry.
“Something broken,” the toymaker guessed. “The mule must have stepped on it. But no damage to your tent, Talmarak?”
“Only to his rest,” said Sharys.
Talmar nodded. “I need rest more than plans and practice against this evening, it seems. Thank you for visiting us, Brother. Now see whether you can earn another moneystone by mending their toy.”
Sharys smiled at Torin, drew Talmar inside, and closed the doorcurtains.
Noticing Alrathe and Vathilda outside the judge’s tent, Torin stepped over to repeat his explanation of the runaway mule Valdart had stopped.
“Aye, adventurers’ work,” said Vathilda, unconsciously echoing Valdart. “Or farmcrafters’ and furniture makers’, or anyone’s with enough goods and business to want wagons and beasts of their own to pull ’em. But handy that our Valdart was there.”
“Whose animal is it?” asked the judge.
“I don’t know. I didn’t recognize it.”
“But it did no damage other than that?” Alrathe nodded in the direction of Laderan’s tent.
“A little, to one corner of the Scholars’ Pavilion.”
Alrathe sighed. “Well, if any new judgework grows from this, I’ll let the complainant seek me out.”
“Hilshar may have more to tell us when she gets back,” Vathilda remarked. “She misses hearing the noise, but likely learns more though gossip about it! She’s gone to the crafters this morning to start buying those delicacies for your brother with the money you helped us earn yesterday, Son Toymaker. Cel’s breath!” she added in formal blessing.
“Cel’s breath surround you,” seconded the judge with a gesture of leavetaking. Torin returned it and mentally shook off an incipient preoccupation with why Alrathe was interviewing Vathilda. As they retreated inside the judge’s tent, he turned again toward the skyreaders’.
He approached slowly, unsure of his mannerliness yet remembering that sometimes a disinterested third party could help quiet these angerslides. He did not, however, get the chance to attempt crafting calm between them. Hesitating when he came near enough to make out their words clearly, he heard Iris say,
“But I keep telling you I didn’t leave it outside to be rid of it! I just forgot! I was overtired from helping all day at their magic show and I just forgot to bring it in!” Her voice choked. “And now I’ve cut my finger and it’s bleeding. Here!” She thrust the broken thing into Laderan’s hands and pushed past him into their tent.
Torin walked up more quickly, guessing he might help by ensuring that the old skyreader remain separated from his apprentice for a few moments.
“Obvious to any fool it wasn’t a mirror to study with,” Laderan muttered. He turned to the newcomer. “Here, Toycrafter, can you fix this?”
Torin shifted Merprinel’s bundle, which he had carried safe more by instinct than thought, and took what Laderan held out. It had been a small brownish-tinted mirror in a goldenwood frame. Two sides of the frame were crushed and little more than a third of the pane still clung, fragmented, to the sides left whole. Torin thought he remembered seeing it among Merprinel’s new showpieces earlier this season.
“I could mend the frame. I’d have to carve two new sides. And I’m sure Merprinel could replace the mirror. But it’d cost almost as much as you paid for it new.”
“Not worth it. New yesterday. Clear she didn’t care about it.” Tears were running down Laderan’s crinkled cheeks.
“It’s good wood,” said Torin. “I think I could get quite a few inlay chips out of the broken sides. I’d credit you for the wood and mirror shards. That’d make the job less expensive.”
“I gave it to her yesterday. She had it out playing with it last night. Any fool could see it wasn’t made for skyreading work. And she left it out. Not worth fixing. Take it, toymaker. Don’t mend the thing, take it and welcome to it.”
Laderan turned away and started walking toward the woods. Torin shifted Merprinel’s bundle beneath his arm again, picked up several shining fragments from the ground, wrapped them with the rest of the mirror in his handycloth, and returned to the other side of the Scholars’ Pavilion.
A small crowd had gathered, among them Merchant Kara, who strode through to join Valdart from one direction as Torin rejoined him from the other, in the area folk were leaving clear around the animal.
“Aye,” Kara said grimly. “That’s my mule. Trask.”
Trask nickered and swung his head toward Kara at mention of his name. She caught the lead-rope harness at his cheek and turned the wooden owner’s disk back to the side that had her ‘K’ burned in the local alphabet. “Vittor,” she went on in a low, barely contained voice. “He has their morning care today. He’s let this happen once too often, exercising more animals than he can control at a time. How much damage?”
“One corner of the Scholars’ Pavilion, and this mirror.” Torin partially unwrapped it, careful not to let any possible sunglint catch the mule’s line of vision. “I think that’s all.”
Kara looked at the broken mirror and nodded for him to wrap it up again. “Vittor will come to pay, probably within the hour. I assume Mother Vathilda, as senior scholar here, will collect for damage to the pavilion. Whose mirror was it?”
“The skyreader bought it yesterday.” Torin paused. “And gave it to his apprentice the same day. I’m not sure. He paid, but it was hers by the time Trask’s hoof hit it.”
“Merprinel’s work? We’ll find out its price from her. Vittor will deliver half to each skyreader and they can put it together or divide it otherwise as they decide.” Kara smiled. “Cousin Alrathe compared us far-traveling merchants to skyreaders, for our calculations and number-knotting. We also learn to be judges to our hired adventurers. It’s necessary on our travels, and thrifty when we’re in settled neighborhoods.”
“Learn a little magic, and you can wear any color student’s robe,” said Valdart.
She looked at him and smiled again. “Maybe I know a little magic already, Brother. You’ve traveled farther east and west, but I’ve traveled farther north and south. Now lead Trask back to the animal enclosure, take Vittor’s place for the rest of the morning, and I’ll give you a full morning’s pay, no matter how you decide afterward.”
“Happily, Cousin Kara.” Valdart grinned. Then, “Uh, Torinel, suppose we share that little refreshment this afternoon?”
“Between midday and twilight. I’ll watch for you.”
Valdart led the mule away, and the crowd started dispersing. Kara and Torin crossed to Merprinel’s booth, where Dilys waited, smiling, a smallish, flat carrying-bag tucked beneath one elbow.
Merprinel sighed when she saw the broken mirror. “Two pebbles and three large stones,” she answered Kara’s question about its price.
“Almost what I had guessed,” replied the merchant.
“So your mule broke one of my pieces after all,” the mirror-maker went on. “It’s always melancholy to see craftwork spoiled.”
Kara looked at the showledge. “Fortunate for Vittor that mule didn’t reach your unsold stock. His moneypouch is not likely to gather any more gems from mine.” She wished them good-bye and left.
“Poor Vittor,” Di
lys said softly.
“Yes.” Torin felt grateful he was himself, with the hard climbing of these last two days below him, rather than Vittor with discomfort ahead. “But Kara remarked it isn’t the first time he’s been careless. Apparently she’d warned him. Well, I’ll pay him for the reusable wood and mirror fragments.” He gave Merprinel her mended frame and showed her the silverlink necklace. “This is priced at a pebble and one small stone.”
“Well worth its price. Yes, I will buy it.”
While Merprinel got her money, Torin turned back to Dilys. “How does your throat feel?”
“Much better. I may be able to tell my stories this afternoon.” She linked her free arm through his. “If I slip something else hot down it this morning. Sip with me?”
* * * *
That afternoon shortly before Valdart arrived, Iris came to the toymaker’s booth. “Brother Torin, do you still have my mirror?”
He did not ask how long she had practiced before she could call him “brother” after so many seasons of teasing him with “son.” “Yes. I’ve already paid Vittor the adventurer what the usable materials are worth, Sister Iris.”
“That’s all right. He paid Uncle Laderan and me.” She drew in a shaky breath. “But I want it mended.”
“I’d have to charge almost a pebble for the frame, and Merprinel would probably want another pebble for the new pane. That’s nearly as much as Laderan paid for it new.”
“Yes. I know. Uncle Laderan gave me all Vittor’s repayment. He insisted I take it. Brother Toymaker, I want my mirror. Not a new one to replace it. That one.”
“All you’ll really have of the original will be half its frame.” And Torin would lose by the arrangement, since he had paid Vittor for those two whole sides as well as the fragments, and in kindness and fairness he saw no way to ask anyone for that amount back. But, looking at Iris, he suggested, “I think I could work some pieces of the original mirror into the frame design as inlay, if you like.”
“I’d like that. Yes, I think I’d like it very much. Thank you, Brother Torivin.”
“Well, you’d better tell Merprinel. Here.” He picked out a long, thin shard and gave it to Iris. “In case she needs it to match the tint more exactly. I can’t have the frame mended by tomorrow, you understand.”
“I understand! Horodek Icecrystal Fair? Or maybe I can come to your shop before then?”
“Give me at least twelve days.”
“Thank you, Brother,” she repeated. “Cel surround you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Torin and Dilys came to see Talmar’s magic display together. Their long friendship was sufficient explanation. They had watched closing shows side by side at numerous fairs. When Sharys was a child, she had sometimes stood on a stepladder between them. If she guessed tonight they had found something besides friendship… It might not be so ungentle an intimation.
Vathilda, Hilshar, and Sharys were also early arrivals in the audience circle this evening. The highest ranking magicker always climbed the platform outside the Scholars’ Pavilion alone on the last night. Once there, the magicker used a mind-message to summon an assistant: this was the first of seven feats fixed by tradition. Ideally, no one should know ahead of time who that assistant would be (though sometimes, when the magicker was low ranking and not adept at mind-messages, they arranged it beforehand between themselves); but most often a fellow magicker or other student was chosen, occasionally a storycrafter. Torin and Dilys hoped the high wizard would not summon either of them tonight.
When she saw them, Vathilda left the stool on which she had been sitting and joined them to gossip. “I think he’ll call our Sharys,” she confided, not happily. “I told him I didn’t want it. Better have me or my daughter by him in case he glory-chokes again. Experience! More likely to seed her with boasting sickness, if everything goes as he plans. But she keeps silent about it, just nods and grins.” The old sorceress peered at Dilys and Torin and shook her head. “Well, what was all that fuss-over about the mule this morning, eh? We heard it was Merchant Kara’s animal and she’s unhired one of her adventurers because of it. He wouldn’t say much about it himself. Only paid us for damages.”
“He’d taken three of her pack animals out to exercise at once,” Torin explained somewhat reluctantly. Valdart had recounted the tale to him that afternoon. “A snake startled one of them, the first one startled the others, and while he was holding two, one broke away.”
“It was the fourth time he let something of that kind happen.” Kara had come up behind them, and showed no reluctance to add further explanation. “I told him to look for work on a ship or in a mealshop, not with animals. Cel’s breath.” She passed on to lean against a tentpost.
Vathilda grunted. “I’m not sure I’d trust that one to trade with.… Laderan bought himself some harvest colors today. A belt as wide as his midfinger’s long. They’ve talked it through, and the sapling plans to stay and work with him when she’s full skyreader—as niece and uncle. We’ll see where they are next amberleaf season. Alrathe wants you and Valdart tomorrow morning, Son Toycrafter. And my granddaughter wants you in our tent after the high wizard’s performance. Whether he’s still healthy or not, she says.”
Valdart was coming into the audience area. The sorceress took her leave of them with a nod and moved on to him.
“Sharys will want only you and Valdart,” the storycrafter murmured. “And maybe someone else, but not me. I wonder if Cousin Alrathe will let me in with you tomorrow morning?”
The crowd gathered, mingled, eddied about to exchange greetings. Every fairgoer attended, even Kasdan, his daughter, and their younger apprentice Perlyn, although they stood on the outer fringe so as to hurry back and reopen their meal tent immediately after the display. Talmar alone was late. At this season, the traditional first tricks should be performed as sun touched horizon. East’dek’s fairground being ringed by forest, the horizon was hidden; but the sun dissolved until it cast no more shadows, the clear sky above the treetops deepened to sapphire, and Torin began to worry. Nor was he the only one, by certain signs of tension in the audience. Sharys, however, seemed calm, as nearly as he could still see her expression in the twilight.
At last the curtains behind the platform swished apart and the high wizard slowly climbed the steps. By now, the sky was nearly the same shade as his dark azure robe. Except for a black streak at either temple, he had silvered his hair. It was a permissible effect for any magic-monger who had at least seven natural gray strands, and Talmar’s thick hair had begun dappling early even for a scholar. Nevertheless, Torin thought the hint of long, lingering illness, combined with the suggestion of a mage’s silver head, slightly pretentious.
Talmar carried his globe. Unlit, it remained scarcely visible against his robe, so that he seemed almost to pantomime when he set it down on his table. Next he brought a thin white rope from his sleeve, waggled it so that all could see how supple it was, and transformed it into a metal stand, twice as tall as the rope’s natural length. He set his globe atop this stand. If the transformation were weak and unknit itself unexpectedly, he risked losing his precious sphere.
He gestured with unnecessary extravagance and the globe burst into light—white, clear, and dazzling for a moment, then settling to lucent silkiness.
All this was before the traditional summoning of an assistant that should have opened this display, yet Talmar had slipped it in as preparation, and his audience responded with a two-line song.
Now the high wizard closed his eyes, and the globe sent out rays of colored light. This was rarely seen in any but mages’ displays, and Torin had only heard of its being coupled with the summoning twice, both times by elder mages. The rays began revolving, faster and faster, red, orange, gold, green, blue, purple, and white flickering after one another. Had the revolution been a few heartbeats faster or the colors a tone more bright, it would have caused eye-ache. Indeed, Torin wondered if his brother were truly combining light control with summons,
or if the actual mind-message would come slightly afterwards, in a gap when most of the audience had finally closed their eyes.
No. Torin’s gaze was on Kara only by chance at the moment, but he saw her stiffen and glance up in the middle of the light show. Gold, green, and blue moved across her face as she stared upward; but despite the color distortion her surprise was obvious. As blue changed to purple, she shrugged, moved away from her tentpost, and began looking about the ground.
A far-traveling merchant, a relative stranger seen in this neighborhood every third year, was an unusual choice for assistant. The audience whispered a little as more and more of them saw whom Talmar had summoned. Torin managed to exchange a glance with Sharys; it told him she was not at all disappointed. She must have known Talmar would not choose her.
If Kara’s morning quip to Valdart about knowing a snatch of magic had been more than idle joking, any small feats she knew would probably belong to the different techniques of far-away places. And no one who had seen Kara’s reaction would believe she had known ahead of time. The display was to be entirely of Talmar’s skill, with only minimal and nonmagical help from his assistant, not the combination of power that conjurers and magicians sometimes resorted to.
Kara found a fallen twig with numerous dry leaves still attached, picked it up, and carried it to the platform. She climbed the steps and gave Talmar the twig. His light spectrum dissolved into a steady milk-white tinged with gold. He cupped his hands over the twig for an instant, opened them, and a stream of white throstlebirds flew up from between his fingers, chirruping their six-note garland of song.
This was another traditional transformation, though in autumn and winter shows the species of bird, the base materials, and the exact place in the schedule were left to the performer’s choice. Usually eggs were involved and the birds a colorful variety of species sent flying into tawny sky above a sun not quite vanished. Tonight they fluttered a moment around the platform, all white and seemingly almost as delicate as dried leaves catching the globelight, then rose like flakes of snow, or glowing white ash, or stars falling upwards into blue tourmaline sky. Torin wondered if such an effect could ever be captured in the static craftwork of wood and stone.
At Amberleaf Fair Page 16
